eyeo’s way to becoming a more sustainable company
Every year on April 22 we celebrate Earth Day to support environmental protection, and raise awareness for climate change and the critical state our planet is already in. Today is a very special Earth Day, as it is the 50th anniversary. The first Earth Day in 1970 is credited with launching the modern environmental movement. Find out more about the Earth Day actions that take place today.
This year’s Earth Day motto is climate action, and eyeo is also thriving to become more sustainable and keep this earth a liveable place not only on Earth Day but 365 days in the year. That’s why we decided to found a Climate Protection task force that is responsible for analyzing our processes and behaviours, and see how much CO2 we produce and how we can reduce it.
In 2019, eyeo became a founding member of the organization “leaders for climate action”. More than 100 Startups and their leaders joined forces to become CO2 neutral and fight global warming together.
Christian Dommers, climate protection officer at eyeo: “eyeo is already CO2 neutral as we are offsetting our emissions, but we want to go further.”
One trait of eyeo’s DNA and culture is being a remote company. This means that around 45% of eyeo’s employees work from home full-time and don’t commute to an office. This has a very positive impact on our CO2 footprint, but it comes with the need for occasional business trips and team days in order to stay in touch, and often flights are needed to bring our teams together.
To cut our carbon emissions we decided to adopt a new travel policy. In past years, the company came together twice a year. We’ve decided to cut this down to once a year. Flights within Germany and to destinations reachable via train within less than 6 hours are no longer allowed. Overall, these meetings should only be held when absolutely necessary, and they should be held in locations that require the least travel, as not travelling at all is still the most sustainable option.
We are still on an ongoing journey to reduce eyeo’s carbon footprint, but we are trying to be creative about new ways to interact and strengthen our teams without coming together to a dedicated place. For example, we’ve had partly remote team days, fully remote workshops and a remote open space where 200 eyeo employees discussed the future of eyeo for 48 hours non-stop fully remote, and we liked it! This shows that thriving for a more sustainable way to run eyeo’s business will not only lead to lesser emissions but also forces us to find creative alternatives and discover incredible things along the way.
You can find out more about eyeo on our press page.
