The best emissions are those that do not occur. Reducing emissions is often easier for companies than for private individuals. Companies can make a real difference. The goal of CO2 neutrality is only a distant one if you don’t even try.
Therefore, this article is mainly for inspiration and sharing. In this article, we reflect on ourselves and our efforts to improve our sustainability. We are constantly looking for optimization opportunities, but we also exchange ideas with other companies. We believe that digitization offers a great opportunity for more sustainability. Read our challenges and progress here.
What does not arise does not have to be compensated
How we avoid emissions
Our team works primarily from a home office, eliminating office space and daily commutes. We use co-working spaces for occasional meetings.
Instead of having our own fleet of vehicles, we rely on environmentally friendly alternatives: Air travel is avoided, train journeys are made using green electricity, and customer meetings often take place via video call. If necessary, we prefer public transport and car sharing, especially with e-vehicles.
Our digital products are resource efficient: our websites, plugins and WordPress themes are among the most powerful in the world. As a result, we reduce data transfer enormously and consume less energy – our website outperforms 91% of all tested sites.
We also rely on a data center that is powered exclusively by green electricity from TÜV-certified hydroelectric plants in Austria and Bavaria. This guarantees that websites hosted by us will also run sustainably.”
Modern indulgence trade?
How we offset emissions
Zero emissions would be ideal – but at the latest when one understands every human being as a biopower plant, one realizes that we already emit emissions through our very existence that cannot be practicably avoided.
Roughly speaking, we cause 3 tons of CO2 emissions per year – an external audit is not worthwhile here. Instead, we balance a multiple of our estimate.
We have decided to offset our CO2 emissions with the help of the non-profit and earmarked association PRIMAKLIMA e.V. – with a very good rating from Stiftung Warentest for PRIMAKLIMA e.V..
Through our contribution, CO2 certificates are shut down through afforestation and forest protection projects and thus effectively withdrawn from the market.
We see the purchase of CO2 emission offsets as a transitional solution – we wish that the ecological costs were legally anchored and directly priced into the entire supply chain – CO2 offsets should be standard and no longer a promotional measure.
Update 2023
Due to the research of the ZEIT, according to which 90% of the CO2 certificates of the global market leader are worthless, we pause the purchase of CO2 certificates until further notice. Even though PRIMAKLIMA e.v. is probably one of the good guys in the industry, the entire market and control mechanism is dysfunctional due to failure of controls at the market leader – the price calculation of the certificates is not valid and thus useless as a control tool. We think this is a great pity and hope that we will find a sustainable option again in the future.
CO2 neutral WordPress agency
less is more
Offices, fleet, flights – do you need all that to work well?
Sure, we save money by paying less for office space – too bad that’s not enough motivation for many companies. Just as waste separation is only strenuous for those where a lot of waste is generated, the switch to a climate-conscious WordPress agency was comparatively easy for us – manufacturing businesses certainly have a much harder time here.
Even if we are mathematically climate-positive as a result, supply chains are still hardly completely ecological. Because although our data center runs on 100% hydropower – there is not even an ecological alternative for the hardware of our workstations and servers. The data transfer via the Internet nodes is also not yet consistently ecological, as is the expansion of lines, the development of the software we buy or the work equipment of our employees.
We have understood that emissions prevention is better than emissions offsetting. We are in a comparatively good position with our emissions – but that is no reason to rest on our laurels. Especially through digitalization, we can also be an innovator for our customers and ensure that customer processes are digitally mapped in a CO2-efficient way.