Introducing Practical Sustainability Measures in our Own Offices

London

§        Environmental movement sensors installed in our London offices help us to ensure that  power use and costs are minimized when no one is using office space.  The “plastic” cups used in our breakout areas are actually made from biodegradable potato starch, and the pencils available in our meeting rooms are made from old compact disc cases.

§        We now have nearly 150 well-used cycle parking spaces on our London office premises, up from approximately 40 just two years ago. Alongside these, we have taken the opportunity in our office renovations to increase showering and changing facilities.

§        Two years ago, around 60 percent of all the waste we produced at Hanover Square went to landfill sites, with 40 percent being recycled; today, none of our waste goes to landfill sites and whatever cannot be recycled is sent to incinerators that generate electricity.

§        All our new offices use low-energy light fittings. The fit-out work done at Canary Wharf, Heathrow, Gresham Street, Birmingham and Hanover Square resulted in recycling more than 70 percent of construction materials, regarded as a very high rate compared to industry standards.

§        We are now monitoring the use of energy and water in all our offices.  In each, through a joint effort by our Facilities and Upstream Sustainability Services teams, we are setting targets for reductions and—starting in 2010—will be reporting back with initial results.

§        We are encouraging the recycling of old company and private mobile phones, each of which will raise £3 for our charity partner, the Alzheimer's Society.

Asia Pacific

Our Asia Pacific region has developed a green “checklist”, which lists 101 ideas that operational staff can implement in offices to reduce our carbon footprint. This checklist is now held by each country’s ACT team and our Office Managers ensure that our offices are addressing all possible ACTions.

Chicago

We introduced a range of innovative design components when we redesigned our Chicago headquarters space in 2006. These allowed us to reduce square footage per person by nearly 25 percent while creating a more inviting, productive and sustainable work environment.

Without these changes, we would have needed another two floors and related additional energy usage in the building. We also would have incurred an additional $22 million in operating costs over a ten year lease term and $9 million in capital costs.

We furnished our new space with sustainable workstation furniture and chairs. Even the chairs in employee cafes, which replace traditional fabric with surplus automotive seat belt material, reflect sustainable design principles.