Whose job is it to care for our planet, and to make sure that our actions are sustainable?
Most of us would agree that it’s everybody’s. It’s a job for international organisations, for individual countries, for cities, for communities, for families and individuals. And of course, for companies.
At Story Inc, we have been doing a number of things over the past few years - reducing travel with Zoom and other tech tools, and fully offsetting the travel we still do; recycling and minimising waste, including an office worm farm (from which some of our worms are continually trying to escape); and exploring ways to design our installations so they are more environmentally friendly.
Now we’ve taken the next step and embarked on a process towards “enviromark” certification through Toitū Envirocare. We have recently achieved the Bronze Toitū Enviromark certification and are currently working towards Gold.
It’s all about being more systematic in our approach to sustainability, making sure we:
Protect the environment in our day-to-day work
Influence our suppliers and clients to do the same
Comply with all relevant laws
Continually improve our performance, rather than rest on our laurels
The process works by using the opposite of the famous Fight Club rule: the first rule of the process is to talk about the process. So apart from the unexciting but essential work of systematising and documenting what we are doing, one of the most important parts of it is opening the discussion up to everyone who works with us, to see what ideas emerge.