Greenhouse gas emissions from this category (quantity per type of waste, etc.) total 0.2 tCO2e. This low number reflects the structure of our small company, our shared office, almost non-existent packaging & printing, and the absence of a bespoke canteen.
One thing that can be improved, however, is the consumption of take-away food at work. Even though we all have our own reusable water bottles and mostly drink tap water, reducing waste from take-away food picked up at nearby grocery stores or restaurants is a problem. The reasons are twofold: sometimes the options for getting the food in reusable containers are limited, and sometimes time pressure or pure laziness leads people to choose packaging that may often be plastic. We’re considering a better incentive system as a viable option to lower our footprint.
We have a system for waste sorting/recycling in the office. The categories are glass, plastic, cans, paper, organic waste and general waste. The stage backdrop for the Climate Impact Day was designed sustainably and will be reused in 2022. Electronic purchases are expected to remain in the company for a longer period of time than in average companies. Our inventory in this regard is already partly made up of refurbished devices – the numbers here always depend on model availability.
We’ve drawn on studies from the WKO, ARA and others that outline typical behavior with regard to waste management and calculate various averages for workers in Austria.