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The Sustainable Office - Part 4: Commuting

November 17, 2008 – 4:02 pm by Keenan

There are so many reasons to make your commute to work more sustainable, and there are just as many ways to achieve a greener commute. On top of reducing your impact on the environment, greening your commute by walking, cycling, using public transit, or any other method can get you in better shape, save you time and stress, give you time to read or chat, and save you money. I, for instance, walk to work every day. It's about 1.6km (1 mile), and it only takes 15-20 minutes. If I am running late, I just hop on a bike and pedal my way to work. It gives me time to relax, enjoy my surroundings, and listen to music before and after each workday. It also gets me a little exercise, which gets the endorphins flowing and helps me work off the entire wheel of cheese I inevitably eat each night. Living in Paris, ...

Posted in Business, Environment | 2 Comments »

Eco-gesture of the day - Take 8: Second-hand clothes!

November 13, 2008 – 4:05 pm by Keenan

Second-hand clothes are awesome. I don't feel a need to support that with any evidence, so I won't. In addition to being awesome, pre-owned clothes offer a surprising number of benefits to the environment, society, and your wallet. While it is well-known that buying second-hand is much cheaper than buying new (often up to 10 times cheaper), the other intangible benefits are less well known. Many people do not consider what materials go into making new clothing, but the numbers are pretty astonishing: 1/3 pound: Chemicals used to grow enough cotton for one T-shirt; 47%: Percentage of those chemicals that are human carcinogens; 20,000 liters: Water needed to produce 1 kg of cotton; 66648 kWh: Energy needed to make one tonne of cotton clothing; 91508 kWh: Energy needed to make one tonne ...

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The Sustainable Office - Part 3: Paper and Ink

November 10, 2008 – 4:37 pm by Keenan

Paper and ink are two of the things most consumed by offices, and that consumption comes along with some hefty environmental side-effects. The effects of using paper are well-known (deforestation, energy use, water use, etc.), yet offices around the world still consume astounding amounts of the stuff. It was estimated that each person in the entire world consumed an average of 54.48kg or 120 pounds of paper in 2005 (Americans use about 320 kg or 700 pounds of paper per year, but hey, who's counting?). That comes out to 354 billion kg (177 million tonnes, 780 billion pounds) of paper per year globally. Of this paper waste, about 50% is commercially generated. That's a lot of paper, a lot of trees, and a lot of energy that can be affected by changing behaviors within the office. The negative effects of ink and toner use are less publicized and are rarely ...

Posted in Business, Environment | 3 Comments »

First Verteego user focus group

November 7, 2008 – 4:14 pm by Raluca

Thursday evening, October 30, Verteego office: the Verteego team had the pleasure of hosting six motivated Verteego.com users willing to give us their feedback. One hour of testing the application and carefully observing the user experience all along... ...followed by a group debate where each and every single participant expressed his or her opinion on the design and contents of verteego.com. An extremely interesting and useful experience for us! This was only one of the first steps in improving our product by taking directly into account the most important opinion, which is that of our users. Thank you all for having accepted our invitation and for the very positive appreciation on the organization of this event! Finding out directly from you that we are on the right way is more than encouraging - this is what keeps us going on and becoming better and better! THANK YOU Your Verteego Team

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Wut 2 cut? Grammer vs. Employee Education

November 7, 2008 – 12:23 pm by Keenan

Unless you have been living in a cave or buying other people's misery on margin, you have probably noticed that money is a little hard to come by in the business world right now. In times like these, companies begin cutting any costs they possibly can. At Verteego, for instance, we have switched from phones and internet to a complex system of messenger pigeons for communication. It is low cost and low carbon--a win-win. Strangely, we have not heard anything back from any of the messages we have sent to North America. There are many programs/departments/activities that organizations can choose to cut to save costs. It makes sense that they would want to cut those that are not integral to their immediate operations and that have the lowest return on investment (ROI). Investing in your employees' education is one of those things that has difficult-to-measure returns, so it is usually ...

Posted in Business, Social sustainability | 1 Comment »

Eco-gesture of the day – Take 7: Vampire power!

November 6, 2008 – 7:26 pm by Keenan

You see all those appliances around you? Your computer, your TV, your cell phone charger? All the ones that appear to be off? Well, they're not off. In fact, they are sucking power and costing you money right now. It's called standby or vampire power, and it is a huge, silent consumer of energy. Of all the power consumed in the EU each year, about 10% of it is vampire power. The amount of vampire power consumed in the United States each year is enough to power the entire country of Italy for a year. A TV is a good example of a vampire appliance. When it is off but still plugged in, the TV is actually in standby mode, awaiting the signal from the remote to turn on. In this state, it is consuming power. Other common appliances that consume energy in standby mode are computers, adapters, chargers, DVD ...

Posted in Environment, Take action | 5 Comments »

Social and Environmental Responsibility at World Forum in Lille

November 6, 2008 – 3:41 pm by Alice

Think is good, act is better! 3 days of conferences, workshops, interesting meetings, book shops and organic coffee for the 3400 participants at the Lille World Forum 2008. This nice video will give you an idea of the second edition of this event. World Forum Lille, édition 2008. from Marie COLLETTE on Vimeo. First of all, I had the nice surprise of seeing a lot of young people! Highschool and college students from all over the world brought a special vibe to this event. Creative and involved, different groups organized several small happenings like an organic picnic or a sustainable development quizz. The Verteegeekettes ;-) enjoyed their time at the forum (proof in video - check out Raluca in action, totally captivating her guest) The recipe of Lille World Forum 2008? Talented speakers, round tables with no set language, and maybe also special guest Wangari Maathai. Winner of 2004 Nobel Prize for "her ...

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The Sustainable Office - Part 2: Lighting

October 28, 2008 – 9:00 pm by Keenan

Depending on the estimate, lighting accounts for 20%-35% of energy use in commercial buildings, and a significant chunk of your expenses. Lighting in your work environment affects the way you feel and how productive you are. Let's take a look at some ways to decrease costs and increase productivity through lighting. 1. Use natural daylighting Daylight is free and plentiful, so why not make use of it? Studies have shown that people who work near windows or in the presence of natural light enjoy their jobs more and are more productive than others. 2. Use CFLs CFLs last 10,000 hours (or about 5 years if it is on for 8 hours every workday). That is over 5 times longer than incandescent bulbs. CFLs are about 5 times more energy-efficient than incandescent bulbs. This combined with the fact that CFLs must be replaced much less frequently than incandescent bulbs makes CFLs more cost ...

Posted in Environment, Take action | 1 Comment »

About CSR, good will, commitments and…pixels!

October 27, 2008 – 8:09 pm by Raluca

It's always nice to meet companies that commit to sustainable goals. I had the opportunity - and the pleasure! - to do that and have some fun in the same time during the launching of the Digital Industry Network from Paris area. Supported by the Chamber of Commerce, this network has chosen sustainable development values as guiding lines for its future evolution. All member companies have a strong will to reduce their impact on the environment, favour local development and integrate social responsibility into their practices. And I can only congratulate them for this beautiful initiative meant to set an example. The fun part of this event was that, at the end, all the guests were invited to participate to a "collective work of art". Basically, everyone was given a coloured square in order to represent ... a pixel on a picture! Why a pixel? This symbol was chosen first because it is ...

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How to sign up for Verteego - the online sustainability platform

October 25, 2008 – 1:09 pm by Raluca

I hope by now you all know what Verteego is. But just to make sure, here are some of its most important characteristics: - a tool to assess your sustainability performance and help you improve it - a simple way of creating your sustainable development report - a platform allowing you to communicate on your practices with all your stakeholders (clients, suppliers, business partners, investors...) by publishing your report online - a great way to highlight your social responsibility efforts - a network of sustainable companies and organizations that share their good practices - a reliable action plan supplier for companies and organizations that commit to sustainable development goals Now, how does this work? Don't worry, the Verteego team has all figured it out for you. It's meant to be simple, for everyone! First, it is a web platform, so you don't need to install anything. Second, the interface is very user friendly and you are guided along step ...

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