Did you know that just today, you’ve probably released about 30kg of CO2 into the atmosphere? That might not seem like a threatening number, but if you look around, it multiples quite fast with each new person you greet.
In total, the average European citizen creates 12,800 kg of CO2 every year, and that number goes up to 19,000 kg for the average US citizen. It all adds up to enormous amounts of carbon emissions getting released into the atmosphere, co-causing a rise in global temperatures and the climate change that’s affecting us all today.
Virtually everything we do has a CO2 footprint, and Bundl is no exception. According to our estimates, Bundl releases 70.223 kg CO2 per year (that’s about 192 kg per day). Here’s the rough breakdown:
Of course, these are all necessary activities to keep our operations functioning at full capacity, but we wanted to take measures as a company to diminish our emissions.
After giving it some thought, we decided to tackle this challenge in three steps:
Let me walk you through each of the steps in our strategy.
Step 1: Lowering our CO2 emissions
The first step we took in lowering our CO2 emissions was to examine their sources, which can be divided into three categories:
Once we had our categories down, we created a priority list of actions from easy fixes to more complex adjustments we could make to our policies. Getting through the whole list will take time, but just creating it provided the guidance we needed to lower our emissions systematically.
Here are just a few of the activities on our list:
- Switch to green energy providers for our offices
- Prioritise nearby locations for offsite events
- Recommend digital meetings and workshops for international clients
- Encouraging sustainable behaviour in the office (e.g. nudging for vegetarian alternatives)
Step 2: Offsetting our CO2 emissions
The second step in our strategy was to offset 100% of our emissions (those 70.223 kg CO2) with a donation to two CO2 capture funds. We split the donation 50/50 between two organisations:
- We Forrest - a Belgian charity dedicated to reforestation programs.
- Carbon 180 - A U.S. charity that researches carbon removal solutions through science.
If you’d like to start a similar initiative in your business, workplace or home, here are some useful resources:
- Tradewater - Enables business owners to calculate and offset their carbon footprint.
- Wren - Is a great resource for individuals to calculate and offset their carbon footprint.
Step 3: Promoting sustainable venturing
Finally, as corporate venture builders, we also have a considerable environmental impact by ideating, co-creating, and launching new corporate ventures. Not only are we invested in creating ventures and services that help our customers reach their growth goals - we’re also increasingly factoring sustainability into the equation.
Here are just a few examples:
- Adding circular economy components into our innovation methodology.
- Including circular models in our Deep Dive and Value Space Exploration sessions.
- Encouraging circular economy methodologies and tools through our content marketing.
Final Thoughts
Whether it’s the melting polar ice caps, the increased incidence of floods and wildfires, or the dangerous amounts of plastic polluting our oceans, we’ve all felt the negative impact of climate change. It all boils down to one inevitable conclusion: we all need to do our part for the good of our planet.
As Bundl continues to grow, adding new ventures to our portfolio, expanding our talent base and opening new offices outside of Belgium, so will our commitment to sustainability. The first steps that we’ve already taken are enabling us to scale our know-how in this area, and we’ll continue to scale our efforts in the years to come.
We’ll keep you posted on our further developments, insights, and ideas to create a better Bundl - so stay tuned. We’re just getting started.
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Are you interested in exploring new growth areas and creating new concepts to diversify your portfolio? Get in touch!
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