We are sustainable entrepreneurs – as part of our company culture, we live this value every day. Sustainability, environmental awareness and social responsibility are the foundation of our corporate DNA.

As a founding supporter of Leaders for Climate Action, we work hard to reduce our CO₂ footprint and are a carbon neutral company since 2020. We only use renewables energies and switched to a sustainable travel policy. In cooperation with Climate Partner we offset the remaining emissions by supporting forest protection in Brasil and helping the Plastic Bank to stop ocean plastic worldwide.

In 2020 we established the cross-company Arvantis Green Team, which already counts more than 15 active members. We discuss possible climate actions and implement them, strengthen the overall sensibility for sustainability and actively move climate neutrality in our company group forward. We have already been able to improve a lot: For example, we only drink tap water, minimize waste production and organize regular green team events.

We are trying to improve environmental awareness especially in our everyday office life. We solely run on recycling paper, think before we print, buy our office food from packaging-free stores and consume vegetarian food.

Mark as done to participate

Join the Teams Challenge

Join our Time for Climate Action campaign

Have an internal conversation about the causes you wish to support 

Set aside a budget 

Find a provider

Prioritise nature-based solutions

Ensure projects do not have adverse effects

Prioritise projects with an immediate effect

Ensure environmental and social safeguards

Contribute to global adaptation

Ensure robustness

Purchase credits

Keep a net positive mentality 

Report on progress

Compensate for your emissions to help society reach net zero faster

Talk to your hosting company

Power your digital infrastructure using 100% renewable energy 

Customize your microsite

Add the badge to your website and link to the microsite

Implement our “We Take Climate Action” badge and microsite

Find a green hosting service

Get the Green Web Foundation label

Get certified

Select a provider that operates on actual renewable energy rather than renewable energy credits

Host your website with a provider that uses 100% renewable energy

High consumption of animal-sourced foods (such as 
meat and diary products), comes with a heavy price for the environment. According to 
Project Drawdown, if 50–75% of people adopt a healthy diet with an overall reduction of meat consumption, at least 54.19–78.48 gigatons of emissions could be avoided from dietary change alone. 
In this action, you will find suggestions on how to introduce food policies that will make a plant-rich diet the new normal in your day-to-day work. Also, we will provide you with some tips on how to communicate this change in the right way to your colleagues.

Get the right people on board

Create a sustainable food task force. 

Understand where your colleagues stand

Identify areas of action 

Collect benefits and examples to convince others

Incentivize plant-rich meals

Produce sustainable food in the office

Incentivise local, organic and seasonal food consumption

Educate your team on the impact of meat-based diets

For remote teams: Give your employees sustainable food vouchers

Communicate internally and externally

Calculate emissions saved

Create clear labeling in your canteen and events

Communicate your choices to customers.

Introduce a plant-rich diet in the workplace

Cutting down on your flights and moving towards train travel has a significant impact on your carbon footprint.

For domestic routes under five hours by train, take the train.
Railway stations are often more centrally located than airports, which makes arrival and departure easier and reduces the footprint of using taxis.  

Mark this action as completed as soon as you change your corporate travel policy accordingly.


Trains over planes

For intercontinental travel, a seat in business class produces __two to three times__ as much CO2 as an economy seat. 
First-class seats even produce up to __six times__ as much CO2.

Mark this action as completed as soon as you change your corporate travel policy and make sure that you buy only economy class tickets from now on.

Economy flights only

Use video conferencing whenever possible 

Set up a policy for sustainable business travel

Make sure that:
- you have a company-wide recovery and recycling program that includes: paper, cardboard, plastic, glass, metal, and composting
- you recycle waste not only from the kitchen but also all papers in your working spaces, cartons at your warehouse, etc.
- your utility service works with all types of waste after you separate it, so it goes into the correct waste sorting centers.

Ensure proper waste separation

What you can do to print less:
- implement electronic signature systems where possible
- instead of printing reports before business meetings, use more screens in meeting rooms
- decrease the amount of pages by reducing font or page border sizes of regularly printed documents: contracts, agreements, etc.
- add a reminder to print less in your corporate signatures
- as a default setting, double-sided printing in black and white is recommended.

Plus, you can recycle your printer cartridges using a free recycling box from [Caritas](https://www.caritas.de/spendeundengagement/andershelfen/caritasbox/caritasboxstartseite). 

Adopt a sustainable printing policy

Mark this action as completed if you will buy office supplies made from recycled materials, produced and delivered in an eco-friendly way from now on. 

Recycled paper is 100% made from used paper, saving resources and water. Although the recycled paper is no longer pure white, it is also free of peroxides, sodium carbonate, and sodium hydroxide. These chemicals are used both in the production of fresh fibre paper and for bleaching paper. Recycled paper has two to three times lower energy consumption during production. 

At [Memo](http://www.memo.de), [EarthHero](https://earthhero.com/product-category/home/office-supplies/), or [GreenPicks](https://www.greenpicks.de/en/office-supplies-stationery/) you can find all of your sustainable office supplies.

Use eco-friendly office supplies

One of the projects where you can find cleaning products and soap without microplastic: [Zero Waste Era](https://www.zerowasteera.com)

Mark this action as completed if you will buy only eco-friendly cleaning products and soap for your office from now on. 

Use eco-friendly cleaning products

Our aim here is to minimize the delivery footprint and support local businesses.
Only purchase food and drinks with verified environmental standards. 


 Buy local, organic and seasonal food and drinks

These purchases can influence your carbon footprint significantly. 
- implement a repair-first policy: it's better to fix a laptop than buy a new one
- regularly calculate and check the footprint created by your equipment purchases (some companies, such as [Apple](https://www.apple.com/environment/pdf/products/notebooks/13-inch_MacBookPro_PER_may2019.pdf) and [Dell](https://i.dell.com/sites/csdocuments/CorpComm_Docs/en/carbon-footprint-latitude-7490.pdf), share data about their products’ footprint on their websites)
- when you need to buy things for your new office, don't just pay attention to them being made of ‘natural’ materials, but also to their production footprint
- utilize old and broken equipment in specially designated places.

Ensure responsible use of office equipment

Here are some ideas on how to make your marketing materials more eco-friendly:
- at conferences, fairs, and festivals, consider digital ways to interact with potential customers: screens, VR & AR, QR-codes, projections, e-business cards, and catalogs, etc.
- if you do choose to produce some giveaways, opt for materials with less of an end-of-life process
- order production locally to avoid causing additional emissions through deliveries
- improve your planning process to minimize waste after events.

Minimize giveaways of t-shirts, flyers, and stickers

What you can do:
- encourage your colleagues to order food delivery less: organize lunch in your office, subsidize lunch in the nearest cafes, or arrange food delivery in reusable containers,
- make sure you use glasses in your office and wash them instead of one-use plastic cups,
- buy beverages in returnable glass bottles,
- buy office snacks in bigger packages with less plastic.

Reduce plastic waste

Install low-flow faucets, toilets, and urinals in your office. 
Low-flow should meet or exceed the following EPA WaterSense standards: faucets use a maximum of [1.5 gpm](http://www.epa.gov/WaterSense/products/bathroom_sink_faucets.html), toilets - [max 1.28 gallons per flush](http://www.epa.gov/WaterSense/products/toilets.html).


Conserve water

Make your office more sustainable

By supporting the Climate Demo's of the Fridays for Future movement, you can help to increase the pressure on politicians. Many big companies like Atlassian, Flixbus, Kickstarter and many more do it already. Join them! 

Give your employees a few free hours or half a day off to go to important climate strikes.

Share it on on social media 

Use your Marketing channels and social media reach to support big climate demonstrations.

Participate as a team

Use existing toolkits 

Make yourself visible 

Actively support climate strikes

Switching to a 100% renewable energy provider for your office energy is a simple but effective step to reduce your company's carbon footprint. It is important to use a reliable provider which transparently communicates the orgins of its energy.

Switch to a 100% renewable energy provider, including electricity and other energy consumption from heating, hot water, etc. Often it’s the most impactful thing companies can do immediately. 

Even if you lease your office, it's still possible to switch, but it requires some time and effort.

We recommend the following green electricity providers in Germany: [Greenpeace Energy](http://www.epa.gov/WaterSense/products/toilets.html), [Naturstrom](https://www.naturstrom.de/geschaeftskunden/), [Elektrizitäts Werke Schönau](https://www.ews-schoenau.de/ews/energiedienstleistungen/angebote-fuer-gewerbekunden/) 

Note: The difference in savings from the future footprint offsetting will often be more than a slight increase in energy cost. 

Discover how Arvantis Group is taking climate action

Arvantis Group joined forces with hundreds of others to take immediate, collaborative, and transparent action to fight climate change.

Raising the bar on climate leadership