At Barrel, we’d like to think of ourselves as an eco-friendly team. This past week, we celebrated Earth Week with a combination of personal pledges and daily company-wide activities.
Personal Pledges
We used Know Your Company to collect pledges from the team the previous week. Here’s a sampling of some of our pledges:
Angela Hum, QA Analyst:
“I’ll start using my reusable water bottle again, instead of recycling Poland Spring bottles all the time.”
Lucas Ballasy, Senior Designer:
“My act of green pledge is to buy local produce and reduce my use of disposable plastic by opting for reusable bags at the grocery store.”
Bianca Meyers, Office Coordinator:
“I pledge to volunteer at my local high school’s community garden for two Saturdays each month.”
Betty Chan, Senior Producer:
“I will pledge to turn off any lights in the office when I see it not in use.”
Sylvia Gacek, QA Analyst:
“I’m happy to say I already do little things like unplug appliances, use tote bags for groceries, reuse water bottles and I know some people have heard about how I wash and reuse plastic utensils, LOL. Next I have a giant pile of old magazines/catalogs/boxes that I’ve been procrastinating on recycling so maybe I’ll finally do that.”
Ben Godfrey, Developer:
“I will continue to walk to work, even if it’s raining.”
Company-Wide Activities
Each day started off with an email from our Office Coordinator Bianca, who, in addition to sharing our team activity for the day, also included several tips about the environment and ways we could contribute to greener habits. Here’s what we covered throughout the week:
Monday:
We recognized the problem of plastic pollution by banning disposable utensils, plates, and cups for the entire day.
Tuesday:
To help us be mindful of energy consumption and to reduce waste, we turned out the lights around the entire office from 11AM to 2PM.
Wednesday:
We recycle regularly as a company every day, but we gave everyone a refresher on what items should go into the recycling bin.
Thursday:
Air pollution is an issue, especially in dense cities like New York. We took the time to repot some of our office plants with new soil.
Friday:
We always end the week with BourbON Friday, our team-wide stand-up gathering where we share wins and thank each other. To conclude Earth Week, we cheered the efforts of our Ops Manager Boram and our Office Coordinator Bianca for organizing everything and reviewed the lessons shared the previous days.
Like taking care of our own mind and bodies, taking care of our planet should be a habit, not a one-time effort. Earth Week is a great reminder for us to identify good habits that we should continue to embrace throughout the year.
Illustrations by Andres Maza
