GreenWeek at commercetools celebrated sustainability with a range of activities and initiatives aimed at reducing environmental impact. Let's take a look at some of the events we had during this time, including a competition for sustainable ideas, daily employee video contributions on personal ecological efforts and educational facts about environmental issues.
Welcome to our GreenWeek run down at commercetools — a week full of inspiration and commitment to a greener and more sustainable world. commercetools is a 100% cloud-based company that specializes in modern, scalable and flexible eCommerce solutions. And eCommerce is the driving force behind resource consumption…isn’t it?
Our response — NOT necessarily! Sustainability is a central component of our corporate philosophy. We endeavor to act in an environmentally conscious manner in our daily business operations and, therefore, also in our products and in our private environment. Our GreenWeek is an expression of this intrinsic motivation of each and every commercetooler, which is also evident in our ESG efforts, achievements and contributions to special initiatives.
GreenWeek started with the announcement of a competition for teams to develop ideas on how we can become even more sustainable as a company. Whether it was improvements in our offices, business practices or our products, every idea counted! Another highlight was the daily video clips from our employees, who showed us their personal contribution to sustainability.
These commercetoolers showed how they reduce their personal ecological footprint, for example, through second-hand purchases and donations, and how they are countering the throwaway mentality through a repair-it-yourself approach. Additionally, topics such as commuting, composting and reducing chemicals to protect drinking water were also addressed in these video clips. We were overwhelmed by the many individual contributions and ideas for more sustainability that lie inside our employees.
A key component of our GreenWeek was also to impart knowledge and raise awareness. To this end, we published daily facts and figures researched for each day's topic in the Planet Earth Alliance employee resource group's Slack channel. Information, such as the fact that 92 million tonnes of textile waste are produced every year and that the production of one cotton T-shirt consumes an incredible 2,700 liters of water, were shared.
We also relayed the facts that the development of the large language model ChatGPT-3 consumed an incredible 700 thousand liters of water to cool the data centers during that period. And that the 5 billion YouTube views of the viral song "Despacito" in 2018 consumed the same amount of energy required to heat 40,000 US households for a year. But we also scrutinized ourselves. We found out that all commercetoolers together consume approximately enough energy per year to light 437 matches in a professional football stadium.
There is a light at the end of the tunnel. Every day during GreenWeek, in addition to facts and figures we shared, there were also ideas and tips on how we can counter these negative influences — both through our own personal behavior at home and here at work. Be it by choosing to walk, cycle or use an electric car to get to the office, buying regional, seasonal products at local markets or by focussing our work on creating products with a broader, more general focus might lead to more sustainable and environmentally friendly outcomes, as opposed to developing products tailored to the specific preferences of a small group of customers.
The underlying idea is that specialized products may involve more resources, production complexity, and waste, whereas more universally designed products might be more efficient and environmentally conscious.
Thorsten Jonas, our external guest speaker from SUX - The Sustainable UX Network, took us on a journey through his and his community's sustainability commitments, which gave us the impetus to scrutinize our own product developments and to consider how we can contribute to greater sustainability through the contribution of our product developers.
The GreenWeek at commercetools was a complete success. Not only did we learn a lot and gather inspiring ideas, but we also showed that each of us can make a contribution to a more sustainable world. Our Eco-Warrior Awards at the end of the year will recognize the best ideas and initiatives, and we are already looking forward to the next GreenWeek in 2025. Stay tuned and follow our efforts to make the world a better place through small but impactful actions.
Together we can achieve great things.
To learn more about our commitment to sustainability, visit our ESG values page.
Björn Holeschak is commercetools' Corporate Compliance Manager and lead on the ESG program. The former IT Security Specialist in the German armed forces gained experience as a Corporate Data Protection Officer and Occupational Health Officer in his previous company. As business lawyer, he is now taking care of the commercetools compliance framework.