by Sam at Management 3.0
At Management 3.0 we’ve been trying to be more conscious of our environmental footprint. Global warming is getting worse and even though we work as a fully remote team, we wanted to play our part while encouraging our community to do the same.
We figured the best way to start, was by surveying our teammates to see what level we were at in terms of environmental consciousness and from there we’d figure out what steps we needed to take in order to improve. We spoke with each of our nine team members, asking everyone to rate themselves on a scale of 1-10 for how conscious they are of their environmental footprint, one being not at all and 10 being extremely aware.
Here are the general findings and thoughts from our team.
The average out of 10 for everyone’s environmental awareness was: 7
We then asked the team to explain if and how they had evolved in the past few years in terms of environmental consciousness and actions, how they think they’re doing and where they have room to improve. Here are some of the answers.
Travel Conscious
For Nadine, one of the biggest ways she factors environmental consciousness into her life is via travel.
“I don’t use the plane for vacation but do a trip by car, or take the train,” said Nadine
Ralph always selects CO2 compensation when he books a flight, or travels by train or bike when he can. In the last few years he’s been trying to be more conscious of his carbon footprint and sometimes cooks or selects the vegetarian menu, uses solar panels when possible and uses LED lights with sensors.
Location Dependant
For some people, where they lived factored into how environmentally conscious and active they could be.
“In Berlin it was very easy to be aware, good public transportation and you are basically an outsider if you use plastic. In Spain it’s very hard to reduce plastic and living on an island I do use flights a lot. We try to reuse stuff or buy second hand, instead of buying everything new,” said Katharina.
Tahira says she’s cognizant that she’s not putting in as much effort as she probably should.
Living in India, a country with over 100 billion people, plastic usage is very very common and “unfortunately I fall in that category too,” she said. But she’s trying to play her part through gardening, recycling, kitchen waste composting, being conscious of water usage, supporting greenery-initiatives and making her kids aware of the environmental impact caused by their daily activities.
Could be More Proactive
A few of our teammates felt they could be more proactive in reducing their carbon footprint.
“I recycle and compost lots but I fly quite a bit, (I have) two cars and eat meat,” said Sarah.
“I have increased my awareness and action over the past year or so, so it is evolving as I see the need for it to. I should do more,” she said.
For Aaisha, who loves greenery and cleanliness, the environment is super important and she considers herself extremely aware. “I mostly don’t like people messing up with environment,” she said.
Conclusion
We are now going over our findings, to see how as a team, we can be more environmentally conscious. As with all of our practices at Management 3.0 we like to gamify things and so that’s what we’re currently discussing. We’ll be back with what we decided to do and how the process is going shortly.
In the meantime, we want to hear from you.
- How environmentally conscious is your team?
- What practices do you already have in place or do you want to put in place?
- How has the environmental awareness and footprint changed since COVID-19?
Share your ideas with us in the comments or send us an email. We’d love a blog post of your team’s experience as well.
