Environmentally Conscious Working from home tips
Hello!
Welcome to our ‘Environmentally Conscious Purchase & Waste Policies. You might be thinking “do I actually have to read this, what’s it actually for?”
Well, at Creature & Co. we believe we have a responsibility to consider the impact our operations have on people and the planet, in everything from the way we commute, our office, through to our supply chain. That’s why we give the following guidance to help you make more socially and environmentally responsible decisions when purchasing and disposing of items for your home office.
Purchasing Policy
Before making any purchase, from computer hardware to food and drink, pirate costumes to giant hamster wheels (you never know!), it is the policy of Creature & Co. to:
- Prioritise purchasing products and services that minimise negative environmental impacts, toxins, pollution, and hazards to workers and the community’s safety.
- Prioritise purchasing products that reduce greenhouse gas emissions in their production, freight and use.
- Prioritise products that use recycled content, are durable and long lasting, conserve energy and water, use unbleached or chlorine-free manufacturing processes, are lead-free and mercury-free, and use wood from sustainably harvested forests e.g. FSC and PEFC.
- Consider the ‘whole life’ impact when making a purchase, asking whether it can be disposed of responsibly.
- Give preference to purchasing products and services from Living Wage employers, certified B-Corps, certified Fairtrade producers, businesses owned and run by minority groups, seasonal produce and local businesses.
- Entirely avoid companies with a history of offenses under the Modern Slavery Act 2015.
Waste Disposal Policy
It’s the policy of Creature & Co. to:
- Can the item be reused
- Find out whether the supplier has a takeback scheme
- If the item is hazardous, find a safe way to dispose of it
- If the item can’t be recycled within the office/home recycling waste stream, find out if there is a specific recycling collection point for it nearby
Safe Disposal of Batteries
Take used batteries to a collection point near you
Unwanted Books
Unfortunately, books can’t be recycled due to the glue that binds the book together. Instead we recommend taking any unwanted and re-saleable books to your nearest charity shop.
Unwanted Computers and IT equipment
After wiping personal information from IT hardware contact an IT recycling organisation:
Disposal of Toner Ink Cartridges and Mobile Phones
Digital Carbon Footprint Reduction Guidelines
When working from home and the office
Video Calls & Streaming Guidelines
Video calls are a great alternative to business travel but still carry their own carbon footprint. The carbon footprint increases with the more people there are on the call. With video conferencing, we’re not only uploading our own video to all the video call participants, but we’re also streaming videos of each of them to our devices.
At Creature & Co. we prefer to see each other’s lovely faces and keep our cameras on. However, if you’re joining a webinar, you can reduce your carbon footprint by keeping your camera off when not participating.
Tips:
- Only switch your camera on when it truly adds value
- Use a landline or mobile phone when you only need to speak to one person
Email Guidelines
- It’s estimated that the average worker receives 121 emails per day (!!) and almost half of these will be spam. The carbon footprint of an email may feel relatively small at an individual level, but when this is aggregated across the company it really mounts up!
Tips:
- Avoid sending unnecessary emails
- Only include your email signature in new emails, not in replies
- Don’t forward long email chains, delete what is not relevant
- Don’t cc lots of people who don’t need to read the email
- Link to files that you already have stored in the cloud, rather than attaching copies of them to emails
- Unsubscribe from newsletters that you don’t read
- Switch off email notifications in social apps
- Delete old email accounts that you no longer use
Cloud Storage Guidelines
The Cloud is a great solution to go paperless, however we shouldn’t treat it as a limitless storage space as there is a carbon footprint associated with all storage.
Tips
- Clean out unused files from cloud storage drives and websites
- Avoid storing the same files in multiple places
- Creature & Co. use Microsoft Cloud to store documents (Microsoft have a commitment to use 100% renewable energy by 2025)
