It’s January 2020 and we’ve just entered a new year and a brand-new decade, had a bit of time off away from the office and eaten too many mince pies.
However, this year has also started with an event that has dominated the news and affected many of us, despite taking place thousands of miles away. The spread of the terrible Australian bushfires, which are much more intense this season compared to previous years, has been the latest in a series of extreme weather events.
In November 2019, Venice experienced its highest water levels for more than 50 years, the floods leading to chaos and millions of euros worth of damage. In Antarctica, 2019 saw record-low sea ice extent in some months. Throughout the year we also saw record-breaking heatwaves in France and devastating cyclones in the Caribbean, amongst other countries.
This worldwide extreme weather comes at a time when records show that our planet is warming. The Paris Climate Agreement, signed in 2016, saw countries pledge to take action to limit Earth’s warming to 1.5°C; warming above this will likely mean irreversible climatic change. To limit the warming to this threshold requires rapid climate action, ideally hitting worldwide net-zero carbon emissions by the middle of the century.
Unless we limit the warming, climate change is likely to affect every living being on the planet in some way. And from a business perspective, it will affect resource availability and trade, impacting the cost of doing business and subsequently the economy. Because of this, and to meet net-zero emissions, it is imperative for businesses to take responsibility for their carbon emissions.
But where to start, particularly for us here at HAVAS Just::? Well, this is exactly what we have started to ask ourselves as we work to make our business more sustainable.
Air travel is widely regarded as one of the worst forms of transport in terms of environmental impact, emitting the most greenhouse gases per passenger mile. So, it seems sensible to start with that, particularly as our work with global clients necessitates some unavoidable travel.
As an agency, we have therefore decided to take action:
- Offsetting our carbon. We will be calculating and offsetting the emissions from all our flights by donating to green energy projects run by Gold Standard. All of these projects are VGS-certified to ensure they bring sustainable benefits to local communities whilst reducing carbon pollution – they are, quite literally, the gold standard in the voluntary offset market! For our 2019 flights, our team had the opportunity to vote and select which projects the agency should support. Two were selected: one rehabilitates broken boreholes to provide safe water access for families in Rwanda and the other transforms degraded pastureland to create biodiverse forests in Panama.
- Changing our mindset. As an agency, HAVAS Just:: will be thinking carefully about where we can make carbon savings and ingraining a “green team” culture. For our travel, we’ll choose land over air where possible to reduce our carbon footprint. Our convenient King’s Cross/St. Pancras location will make this much easier. The Eurostar, for example, is right next door, enabling us to reach our European clients within a few hours on a high-speed, electric train.
- Finding alternatives. We are investing in state-of-the-art collaboration software, such as Miro, for a greener alternative to face-to-face meetings. This will allow us to reduce our travel emissions and carbon footprint.
- Creating a greener office. Being part of the Havas HKX village, we are lucky to be part of a sustainability-focused office building. Amongst other things, HKX provides us with recycled pens and notebooks, rainwater-flushed toilets and a completely single-use-plastic free employee cafe. In the HAVAS Just:: office itself we’ll continue to make small changes of our own, e.g. using recycled wrapping paper for our Secret Santa gifts at Christmas and making sure to switch off the all-important office Sonos at the end of every working day.
We are lucky to have an agency filled with people that care for the environment and want to make a difference. Climate change has effects far and wide and, for example, 60% of the planet’s wild coffee species are at risk of extinction – concerning news for our functioning as a confident, curious and collaborative office!
In summary, HAVAS Just:: is going “green” to save our planet (and protect our coffee supply). We love our agency and we love our work… and we can’t have these on a dead planet.
Watch this space for more of our sustainability initiatives in 2020!
