Informa’s Green Week 2011
During the week of 12 September, Informa held its 3rd annual Green Week. It is a week that is intended to increase environmental awareness around the business and kick-start the implementation of initiatives that reduce our environmental impact. Each year, we hold our own “Green Games” where our divisions compete against each other on environmental challenges. The challenges vary from daily ones for staff to complete and score points on (such as reading the environmental section of a news source or not using disposable cups) to larger scale business initiatives judged on their innovation, environmental impact,engagement of staff or 3rd parties and scalability.
This year, the overriding theme has been our commitment to long term plans and projects. Our offices have shown this in different ways. To name a few:
- Euroforum Germany has signed a contract to start sourcing their energy from renewable sources;
- Our Shared Services Centre in Colchester, UK, had a print free day during the week with a commitment to becoming a paperless office by March 2012;
- IBI UK are undergoing a major office move and as such, have used the opportunity to review energy efficiency and waste in their office. For example, vending machines and air conditioning now have timers to reduce electricity consumption and all staff have received branded water bottles to replace the use of disposable cups. Unwanted office furniture was also donated/sold to local schools during the move;
- IIR Hungary has set up a long-term partnership with a local school and during Green Week, held an interactive “Green Seeds” event, teaching the children about environmental concerns around energy, waste, travel and water.
Almost 950 staff around the world took part in our daily environmental challenges with nearly all pledging to continue with at least 1 or 2 of the challenges for the next month, and hopefully beyond. Please click here to view the challenges.
Finally, we also asked divisions to send in their creative communications campaigns on an environmental topic(s) from the week. Informa Australia won this, blogging, tweeting (#greenweek), emailing and filming environmental tips, using the well-loved Incredible Hulk to encourage staff to do their bit.
Peter Rigby, Informa’s Chief Executive, commented, “'Informa employees worldwide contributed to our Green Week in many different ways. I think it is incredible how we all want to make this planet a better place to live both for our generation and for future generations.
It is important that all companies these days take the environment seriously and do whatever they can to support it. Of course from a corporate perspective such involvement ties us all together a bit more and I hope that makes us a better company as well. Of course this isn’t just about one week but forever so keep it up’.