Green Week at Symphony Solutions. How to Run Eco-Friendly IT Company?

Green Week at Symphony Solutions is over, but not our eco-initiatives. The new ones are at the growing stage and some have already become a habit for Symphonians.

We’ll start with a bit of history. Two years ago we moved to a new office in Lviv. From the very beginning, Symphony Solutions was a socially responsible business with a desire to contribute to the nature and surroundings. To do so, we have launched Green Week, which is a series of eco and charity events that aim to improve our office sustainability and make some positive impact on others’ lives whenever it’s possible. First Green Week took part last year and the second one has just finished.

If the first one was dedicated to the environment and sustainability, Green Week 2016 was more about caring for others and healthy lifestyle. We believe that healthy and kind people are more likely to take care of our planet.

So, the Green Week’s menu consisted of different activities, workshops, and yeah, the real menu for Symphonians was also improved.

Each day started with morning exercises and special healthy breakfasts (as you might know, early birds at Symphony Solutions are provided with a free meal in the morning).

Workshops series was opened with the eco workshop from Ivan Nesterenko, CEO & Founder at Zelenew. He taught Symphonians how to breathe new life into plastic waste and turn it into original trash bins, pencil holders, and even lamps.

Eduard Golyak from the Dreamers Place held a culinary workshop and shared his knowledge on how to fuel the body with healthy food such as cold-pressed juice, yeast-free chapati with sprout sauce and fruit flambe.

The last but not the least was a workshop on creating Florariums which can add coziness to wherever you’ll put them.

The closing note is Charity Hackathon KindHack that will gather kind hearted people to develop IT products for NGOs on December 3-4.

Macedonian office was also actively involved. Symphonians in Skopje learned how to reuse plastic using the 3D printer.

Eco-activist Vasko Cacanovski held a presentation about reusing, reducing and recycling materials.

As in Lviv, the final masterclass was dedicated to Florariums.

During the year we have been measuring Lviv office eco starts and it seems like it’s time to praise ourselves.

Symphonians adopted sustainable habits and programs that were launched during the first Green Week very fast. Despite the fact that during the year Lviv office has expanded by 24% and we got many new people (+30% if to be exact), a positive eco dynamic is still growing. Numbers are speaking by themselves.

• Usage of electricity is reduced by 16% comparing with last year. During the last Green Week, we stuck funny stickers with reminders to switch the light off and changed all lamps to LED.

• Usage of paper cups is reduced almost twice (by 47% if to compare with last year). Symphonians come to the coffee bar with their own cups. Paper cups are used mostly by company’s guests and newcomers

• Despite the growing number of people, the amount of wasted plastic hasn’t grown. All wasted plastic is recycled

• 1367 batteries have been recycled this year. It overcomes last year’s result by 67%

• Finally, the total amount of waste is reduced by 27%! For us, it is a sign of environmental awareness of Symphonians

• Amount of plants is increased from 150 to 167, so the balance: 1 plant per 2 Symphonians is kept

• We still have 3 turtles and fishes that happily live in our office. Compared with last year we have more fishes by 33%! ?

• Bicycle fans now can leave their transport at secured parking. Hope that it will also increase the amount of people who prefer eco transport

We just added one more measurement to be able to track water usage within the office. Will keep you posted!

If to be honest, we are delighted with how quickly we have managed to reduce waste of some materials and hopefully next year we will come up with even better results!