Making a difference
The best emissions are those that do not occur. And honestly, emissions are good for convenience, but not necessarily for your wallet.
Instead of greenwashing, we therefore say: It is a civic duty to reduce their own emissions where possible. The goal of CO2 neutrality is a matter of course, so this article is purely for inspiration and exchange.
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
We have no office space – no employee permanently blocks a room. Instead, every employee can and should work from home, the commute is eliminated. For meetings or variety, we use co-working places.
We do not have a fleetof vehicles, have not used flight connections where possible for several years and rail journeys are already largely green electricity. We mainly use video calls, public transport or car sharing for customer appointments, here e-vehicles if available.
The CO2 footprint of our website and software is as small as possible. Websites, plugins and our WordPress theme created by us are among the fastest in the world, so that countless gigabytes of data transfers are saved every year. Our website requires less energy than 91% of the other websites tested so far.
The data center we use runs 100% on hydroelectric green electricity from TÜV-certified hydropower plants in Austria and Bavaria. This means that the websites of the customers hosted by us also run 100% on green electricity.
Modern indulgence trade?
How we offset emissions
It is clear to us that zero emissions would be ideal – but at the latest when you understand every human being as a biopower plant, you realize that we are already emitting emissions through our pure existence that cannot be practically avoided.
As a small WordPress agency, we cause roughly 3 tons of CO2 emissions per year – an external audit is not worthwhile here. Instead, we balance a multiple of our estimate.
We have opted for CO2 compensation with the help of the non-profit and earmarked association PRIMAKLIMA e.V. – with Very Good rating by 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 compensation as a temporary solution – we would like the ecological costs to be directly priced into the entire supply chain anchored in law – CO2 offsetting should be standard and no longer an advertising measure.
CO2 neutral WordPress agency
less is more
Offices, fleets, flights – do you need all this to be able to work well?
Of course, we save money if we pay less for office space – a pity that this is not enough motivation for many companies. Just as waste separation is only exhausting for those where a lot of waste is generated, the conversion to a climate-conscious WordPress agency was comparatively easy for us – manufacturing industries certainly have it much harder here.
We continue to see the sale of indulgences in CO2 certificates as a temporary solution. Even if we are mathematically climate-positive as a result, supply chains are still hardly completely ecological.
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 emission avoidance is usually better than carbon offsetting. We are doing comparatively well with our emissions – but that’s no reason to rest. 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.
We follow the Pareto principle: 100% emission avoidance is the goal, but it is better to achieve 80% tomorrow with 20% effort and compensate for the rest. Intelligent climate protection uses low hanging fruits instead of leaving them unused. This requires inspiration and ideas. Did you know that by changing the font, you can save up to 50% printer ink? Many small steps can add up to a big result.