Userlutions is a UX agency based in Berlin. 
We offer consultation and online-services to ensure a user-centered development of products and communication activities. Our specialized team has leading expertise in the domains usability, user-centered design and marketing performance.
We are consulting companies in the fields of e-commerce, digital media, industry and technology, e.g. Siemens, Universal Music and DHL.

We think that every company has a share of the responsibility to defeat the climate crisis and so we are also intensively concerned with the topic of sustainability.

Some of the big and small actions we took:
We planted over 100,000 trees to offset our carbon footprint.
Our electricity is generated with renewable energies.
We are no longer taking short-haul flights and take the train instead.
We fund the public transport ticket of our employees.
We offer our employees vegan food.
We consistently recycle our rubbish.

Calculate the right amounts to ask for 

Set up funds to drive your sustainable initiatives

Find trustworthy partners for carbon-capturing

Test different formats

Set the transparent communication 

Introduce donations at the checkout to support climate causes

Customize your microsite

Add the badge to your website and link to the microsite

Implement our “We Take Climate Action” badge and microsite

Most public transport companies offer corporate ticket programs. Moreover, these programs are also tax-deductible.
Check out how it works at Berlin’s [BVG](https://www.bvg.de/corporate-ticket).

Public transportation subsidies


__Minimal requirements:__
- join the government bicycle subsidizing program, which allows employees to spend on bikes and equipment, tax-free, making a claimed saving of up to 42 per cent on the overall value. e.g. [JobRad](https://www.jobrad.org/arbeitgeber.html) (DE) and [CycleScheme](https://www.cyclescheme.co.uk/?utm_source=knowledge-base&utm_medium=web-link&utm_campaign=can-i-apply-ee) (UK).
-  ask for commitment. At the beginning of spring, riders commit to a certain frequency (daily, weekly, monthly) of commutes by bike. High frequency riders get bigger bike subsidies if they fulfill their commuting goals for the year. Track riders over the next twelve months with an honor-system spreadsheet. If they meet their riding commitment, they receive their full subsidy as a year-end-bonus. 

__If you want to go the extra mile:__
- Invest in a basic maintenance and repair station. This could be as limited as a bike pump, multi-tool, and bin of replacement tubes, or a full setup with a truing stand and bike repair rack.
- Offer a bike pool for your employees. All it requires is an up-front investment in a small collection of bikes – preferably low maintenance models with internal gearing – and geometry that scales well to a range of rider sizes. Establish your bike pool at the beginning of the calendar year and encourage riding with bonuses and incentives for participation. 
- Engage: track miles and ride frequency in an honor-system and organize monthly group rides.
- Dedicate a shower for riders, with a changing room and personal locker area. 

Cycle-to-work program

If it has to be the car after all for some team members, you can offer them to use shared car services such as [Clevershuttle](https://www.clevershuttle.de/en/), [Pendler Portal](https://www.pendlerportal.de/), [Berlkönig](https://www.pendlerportal.de/). 

Car sharing/pooling, instead of car owning

You can just add it as a requirement in your interview invitation template, or offer to cover train ticket costs for travels less than 5 hours. 
In many cases, responsible candidates prefer to work in companies who care about the environment, so such requirements can even increase your chances to hire the best team members. 

Train travel for on-site job interviews

If your company has its own carpool, investing in electric company cars can improve the environmental balance as long as the electric cars run on green electricity. 

Electric cars only for taxi services, rentals, and company fleet 

Start tracking it regularly and set reduction goals.
If your company’s headcount grows extremely quickly, track the commute footprint normalized by the number of employees in the corresponding quarter.


Quarterly survey to track commute footprint

Encourage sustainable commuting

Mark as done to participate

Join the Teams Challenge

Join our Time for Climate Action campaign

If you want to find out what donation options are available to support LFCA, contact Philippe philippe@lfca.earth

Donate to LFCA

Examples for climate non profits can be found here

Donate to some other climate non-profit

Donate to charities fighting climate change

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

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

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

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 Userlutions is taking climate action

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

Raising the bar on climate leadership