Stepping towards sustainability at JG Communication

Here at JG Communication, we are a company on the move.  And now that we’ve settled into new offices in central Stockholm, that means we’re moving less by car and more on foot, by bike and on buses and trains.

For the third year, we have been certified climate neutral by Respect, a sustainable-business consultancy. This means that we have calculated and reported our carbon emissions, made a commitment to lower them, and then compensated for our remaining emissions by supporting the Ambika Solvex project in India – a project certified by the UN as a clean-development mechanism.

Emissions fall fast

Our total carbon-dioxide emissions for 2011, including our office, employee commuting and business travel, added up to about 79 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions, or about 0.68 tons per employee.

Here are our primary figures:

Here are our basic numbers (in tons of CO2 equivalent):

• Business travel 2011: 39.6
• Employee commuting 2011: 10.72
• Utilities 2011: 22.77

The most significant change in our 2011 numbers came in commuting, where our emissions dropped to 10.72 tons from 37.7 tons in 2010. This massive drop is directly attributed to our move from Kista to new offices in downtown Stockholm. It means that more of us walk to work and fewer of us drive. It also means shorter bus and train commutes for the majority of our employees.

Our greatest impact on the environment, however, still comes from our business travel, which makes up just more than half of our total (a significant drop from 2011). Last year we drafted and implemented a new comprehensive travel policy, which addresses everything from booking hotels to the type of transportation we take to business meetings.

This spring we are officially starting our work towards World Wildlife Fund “Green Office” status, which requires a thorough examination of every phase of our business as it relates to our environmental impact. This will involve focusing on areas like purchasing, paper consumption and lowering our electricity emissions.

We still have a lot of work to do, as we work to further integrate our travel policy and to develop our Green Office policies, but we feel good about our progress through 2011 and are committed to continuing this through 2012.