The DM Lab’s Carbon Footprint
Our Company's Environmental Impact & Carbon Footprint
During this uncertain time, we, like many, have time to reflect. We’re looking at how we work and the impact we have. Re-assessing. Improving.
Ready to come back stronger the other side of the COVID-19 pandemic.
We’re already doing loads with the business in the community as part of our Corporate Social Responsibility. This got us thinking. Are we doing the best we can with the business itself? We are talking about The DM Lab’s environmental impact and carbon footprint.
As a result of the unusual, current circumstances, we’re able to take a minute for ourselves. Instead of getting into work and focusing immediately on the projects in hand, we can think about everything that goes into a working day at The DM Lab. There is always room for improvement, however we’re incredibly proud of the (low) impact we already have.
As we’re currently working remotely, we’re able to reflect and analyse what we’d be doing if we weren’t working from home.
We’ll break down why we believe this is here:
Waste
We pride ourselves on our minimalistic office layout. There is nothing in there that doesn’t have a purpose. We have one very small bin and this alone discourages us from creating waste. If we create waste, we’re personally responsible for it. Nobody wants this extra burden so we really don’t create much! By keeping a clean, tidy and organised office space helps us to minimise the amount of waste we produce. As we don’t have a cleaner and neither want to designate a person in a cleaning role, we each take responsibility for our own waste.
Recycling
All our files and digital records are kept and backed up digitally. Anything that can be done online is kept online, meaning we rarely need to print anything off. Our accounting software Xero is great for this as we don’t need copies of everything taking up space being printed and stored. If we do, this is shredded and recycled. Any packaging that is recyclable is recycled. As and when we have it, our recycling is picked up by Hereford Pedicargo who save 1000’s of tonnes of waste from going to landfill every year.
Gas & Electricity
As every small business does (if not – you should) keep a close eye on outgoings such as utility bills. This helps us to use only what we need to, when we need to. If it’s cold, we’ll dress accordingly. We will warm the office up to make it comfortable for the staff. We have an air conditioning unit for if it gets too warm. We’re careful about spending more than we need to and in turn we’re reducing our carbon footprint by being frugal. If we’re not using it, it’s turned off. It all helps and all adds up!
Fuel
We all have our own personal vehicles, sure. However, we have no designated parking. This is a good deterrent to find alternative ways into work! If we have meetings we have to travel to, naturally we’ll need a car. Harvey gets the train in and walks to the office from the train station. Dale bikes into work. This also helps promote our wellbeing in the workplace as we are balancing being active with being sedentary within the office. These modes of transport alone help dramatically reduce our carbon footprint.
Offsetting
A carbon offset is a reduction in emissions of carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gases made in order to compensate for emissions made elsewhere. We are improving what we already do by carbon offsetting with Ecologi. If you’d like to find out more about how they can help, please visit their website. If you feel you do as much offsetting as you can already, but really want to do more, Ecologi can support you and your business in doing so.
Food
As part of our wellbeing in the workplace, we encourage (and do lead ourselves) an active lifestyle. We all keep fit one way or another. Part of this lifestyle is diet. Since the turn of the year we’ve changed up our keto lifestyles to lean toward a more plant-based diet. The reasons are our own but as a result of this lifestyle change – we are decreasing our carbon footprint by reducing the amount of meat we consume. We’re not preaching about veganism but it works for us and we are able to reduce our environmental impact because of this change.
In Conclusion…
We are only a small (micro) business, but we are taking responsible steps as we grow and evolve. Everyone has to contribute something and we do what we can and we are doing just that. We won’t change the world, but if you can change one (or several) things you can change yourselves and the world for the better.