H+K Strategies' Green Day

On the 22nd September 2009 H+K Strategies offices around the world celebrated Green Day - a day to make all efforts to help the environment with a view to continuing the changes to make our company 'greener'.

 

In the London office we participated in the following events and also managed to reduce energy consumption by 17%

  • Talk from Pen Hadow on the eve of the event

Pen Hadow is a polar expoler who has recently completed a mission to measure the thickness of the arctic sea ice to highlight the dangers of global warming... read more  

  • Free-cycle

A day long free-cycling event in the bar...for which we were encouraged to bring items of value that we no longer needed, but shouldn’t discard/throw out, and exchange them for items brought in by colleagues that do have a value to you. To encourage recycling and not wasting or unnecessarily consuming. All of the left over items were donated to Oxfam. (View more pics here)

 

  • 1 minute to save the world

The challenge: 1 day, 4 teams of 2, to film, edit and premiere 4 films at our eveningunplugged gig to enter the 1minutetosavetheworld competition. The four films each focus on the small things we do as a business to reduce our carbon footprint.

The results: View our 4 videos on the right to see for yourself.

  •  H+K Strategies Unplugged

At the end of the day, we hosted an evening of entertainment...an acoustic set led by Steve Bradley with support from others. Again the emphasis being on not spending money and using resources we already have. (View more pics here or a film from the event here)

See below for the full list of changes we made

Office

  • Dropped the temperature to 20 degrees across the entire office. Most places specify no more than 19 degrees. 20 degrees is “as low” as we can go with current building management system
  • Remove boxes and paperwork by radiators that will prevent heat escaping to where it needs to be to offset impact of heating reduction
  • Staff to wear “layers” to keep warm(er)

Reception & Seventh Floor 

  • Bar coffee machine to be turned off 
  • Flasks of coffee available in bar
  • Bar lights to be turned off / dimmed throughout the day 
  • Reception projector to be off 
  • Plasma screens in the bar to be turned off 
  • Meeting room lights on 7th floor to be turned off - use natural daylight where possible. Staff to be encouraged to turn them off when leaving the room if they have been needed. 
  • neon lights on 7th floor to be turned off 
  • Turned off the front projector

Facilities 

  • no taxi or courier bookings for the day 
  • staff to use public transport / walk to visit clients 
  • hail taxi on street if essential
  • no flowers (for the week)
  • turn off the microwaves 
  • remove all individual bins from under desks to drive increased recycling

Suggestions for staff to consider on the day : 

  • don’t use a car all day – walk, run or cycle to work (www.walkit.com)
  • recycle something you haven’t recycled before – bring in batteries, spectacles, CDs, mobiles, bras and we will recycle for you in the most environmental / charitable way
  • all monitors to be switched off when away from desk or leaving in the evening - those not switched off to be switched off by security. Screen savers DO NOT save energy. 
  • Encourage a “non-printing day“
  • where possible use the stairs rather than the lifts - at least on the way to lunch or coming back 
  • unplug chargers and other electrical devices from under desks 
  • don't use shredders or desk lamps 
  • ‘Wipe-out waste’ day
  • bring in your own lunch 
  • say no to bags – whatever you buy today, use the shop’s ‘no packaging’ choice
  • use water taps (these are filtered) rather than buying bottled water 
  • Have a cold lunch day (the microwaves will be turned off)
  • turn off your PC for an hour and tidy / recycle!