Sustainable Offices
OUR OFFICESWe have three offices: Bristol, UK (13 staff); Broomfield, USA (1 staff) and Nagoya, Japan (4 staff)… as of July 2011
All staff are committed to being as green as we can be.
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TRANSPORT
All members of staff walk, cycle or take public transport to work. Naomi in Bristol owns a car, but she only uses it to take her two small children to nursery. Then she leaves her car, and cycles to the office from there! She's also registered on a car share website (gold star Naomi!) In Broomfield, staff are elidgable for an Eco-Pass so Mat can take the bus to work for free. When we travel to meetings in other cities, we do our best to take public transport. For example Bristol office staff always travel to London events by train or coach.
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FLIGHTS
Our staff love going to Japan, as much as our Japanese colleagues love coming to visit us in Bristol and Broomfield. But in the last year we have significantly reduced the number of staff flights. Our tour leaders are all based in Japan now, reducing the number of flights they need to take to and from the UK and USA.
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RECYCLING
In Bristol we recycle paper, cardboard, plastic bottles, glass and aluminium tins.
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PAPER
By using our website as our main source of client information, we have reduced paper usage dramatically.
When we do print things out, we use 100% recycled paper which is FSC approved. Our brochure is also printed on FSC paper.
We do our best to keep printing to a minimum by printing double-sided, and only printing in black and white where possible.
Our Info-Packs do use a lot of paper. But we only give clients destination guides that are relevant to their specific trip. This is much better than carrying a huge travel guide with information on lots of places you won't be visiting!
Our brochures do not have any date or price specific information which means they have a long shelf life. We also encourage clients (particularly those outside of the UK and USA) to download our brochure, saving on printing and postage costs.
We try not to print documents which can be proofed just as well on screen as on paper.
We email memos and requests, or write on our whiteboard rather than print them out. Or more often or not, we just shout across the office!
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NATURAL RESOURCES AND ENERGY
We do love our tea, but we try not to overfill the kettle.
At the end of the working day we turn off all electronic equipment, and during work time we turn off lights and computer screens if they are not in use.
We only replace ink toners in our printers when they are empty (rather than when the printer tells us to replace them!)
In Broomfield, where the climate is more extreme than in Bristol and Nagoya, Mat wears extra layers in winter and keeps the window open in summer to avoid using a space heater or fan.
We use environmentally friendly products to reduce pollution, e.g. Ecover washing up liquid
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FAIR TRADE PRODUCTS
We buy fair trade tea, coffee, and sugar.
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COMMUNITY WORK
Have a look at our charity page to see the various projects we support. We are ready and willing to visit local schools and groups to teach them about Japan. In 2010 Ruth gave a talk on using languages in the work place to Year 9 students at Wycliffe College in the Cotswolds. http://www.wycliffe.co.uk/languages-careers-afternoon-/