Sustainability Solutions for your company

Sustainability is the most important trends of the last decade. As our planet is heating up, it’s crucial to take action. Sustainable trends in the food, technology, healthcare and energy industries are booming and we are here to hop on the sustainable train. At multiple Spaces we’d like to contribute to creating a cleaner planet. Let’s take a deep dive into our steps to a greener Spaces.

Don’t mix, just match

One of the most important things to do to become more sustainable is recycling. Whether you recycle paper, glass, plastic  or food waste, it’s good to think about where it should go after it has served it’s purpose. At a few Spaces we’ve started using beautifully designed waste bins, to make it easier to match and not mix anymore. We’ve placed the bins on each tenant floor, to make it as easy as possible for all our community members with private offices.

Too good to go

A great initiative against food waste is a company called Too Good to Go. As this app is active in eleven European companies, maybe you’ve heard of them. It’s a simple idea really: you can save food by buying perfectly edible food that stores and restaurants have to throw out at the end of the day. This can range from bakeries that need to bake fresh everyday to supermarkets that have groceries that weren’t sold and restaurants that didn’t sell all the food they had catered for that day. We’ve joined the war against food waste by doing a trial run with Too Good To Go at Spaces Zuidas, Amsterdam.

Carbon foot print

Being sustainable is not only good for the environment, it’s very easy on your wallet in the long run.  At an office, there are many ways to become more sustainable. Here are some quick fixes that will make your office become more sustainable.

1. Recycling all types of waste and reusing food waste is just the start. Think of installing solar power panels on your windows or roof, which is not only good for the environment, it will save your company loads of money on the long run.
2. Consider using Ecosia as a search engine. Ecosia is an Internet search engine from Germany that plants trees by donating 80% or more of its surplus income to non-profit organizations that focus on reforestation and conservationism.
3. Make sure that lights are not on during the night by installing a motion sensor, which makes sure your light will be switched off when you’re not around. Also, when you sit too still while working, it’s a fun and healthy reminder t0 get up every now and then to reactivate the lights.
4. Think about sending emails and how it actually contributes to adding more to your carbon footprint. Almost 2.4 million emails are sent every second and some 74 trillion emails are sent per year. “Assuming all emails emit the lowest estimate (0.3 g CO2 each), the total worldwide CO2 generated by emails would be 22 million metric tons of CO2 per year. This is equivalent to the amount of greenhouse gases produced by almost 5 million cars. If all emails emit the highest estimate (50 g of CO2 per email), roughly 4 billion metric tons of CO2 would be generated each year by emails sent around the world. This is equivalent to the CO2 emitted annually by 890 million cars.” (source).
5. Make sure all the food in your office fridge is eaten before the expiration date (a few days over the due date usually isn’t that bad either). No time left to eat it? Make sure your colleagues take it home or give it to the less fortunate.
6. Start buying sustainable products. This can go as far as desks and chairs made from sustainable materials, up to using eco-friendly toiletpaper.
7. Be conscious about printing. Does everybody in your meeting really need the printed version of your 100 page report? Or can we all look at it via our laptop or tablet.