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Survey on "State of awareness" (Company-wide )
Objective:To gauge the following from the employees wrt Sustainability
1 Awareness/ knowledge/ Perception
2 Enthusiasm to participate
3 Willingness to change
This will influence the following during the course of the Project:
1 What is the present thinking, what is on the top of the mind of the employees - how does it change over a period of weeks/ months during the project.
2 What are the employees sensitive about right now? -
1st ALL HANDS Meeting
The Project was presented to all at the office. Explanation of the project and its objectives. -
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Discussion of skeleton plan, discuss calender & expectations of TW-Bangalore.
DECISIONS: Follow-up meetings would be every week on Wed &Thur, CM available twice a week at TW.
Sessions/guest speakers & movies coming up. "Sunshine Bglr" group created on TW intranet to share ideas and initiate discussions. -
the world-wide AwayDay is an annual TW event. the last Away Day was hosted by the Bangalore Office. travel, hotel, transport, waste data was collected, carbon footprinting done and presented to TW'ers
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CM - Introductory session on Sustainability, LCA & Carbon Footprint & presented the findings from preliminary Away Day data.
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Wet Waste management process discussions initiated. Volunteer engagement groups decided. TW-Bangalore organisational structure discussion with the People Team.
Follow up with admin teams data on resource consumption data - electricity, water, waste, consumables (cleaning supplies and pantry supplies), paper, train, flights, hotels etc. -
Decisions on Microprojects - Volunteer groups sign-ups and meetings remotely for the required tasks for main microprojects such as :-
Movie screenings.
Guest Speakers
Communication & Messaging on Project
Organic Produce Stall
Water Audit
Waste Assessment
Floor Plan-Circulation Audit
Floor Plan - Appliance Audit -
One-on-one meeting to kick-off respective projects were held with - Messaging and Communications Team, Floor Plan (Appliances team) and the Guest Speakers Team.
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1st Talk - Invited Varun Rupela (software professional) to talk about Waste Management in building complexes and offices
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Contact Organic Food Vendors and audit ( visit stores/farm etc) to choose one to come and set-up a weekly stall at the office.
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Floor plan received, dymistified and re-classified - with active invovlvemnt of Sunshine volunteers. CM and volunteers walked around the campus to understand the floorplan to Identify the low and high use areas in each floor
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1st Movie Screening "Age of Stupid" for the whole office
Movie -Open Event -15 attended -
CM members offcially introduced on whiteboards for the whole Office. Sunshine is to be an open project where the TW'ers have egular access to the'experts' and see them in their midst regularly for hte project duration.
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Meeting with wet waste management vendor, preliminary site review and comparison of quotes.
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Buffalo Back - Organic Veg Stall1st organic vegetables stall at the office. Almost ALL the vegetables were sold out in 20mins!
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Site visit by Wet waste vendor to identify areas where set up can take place. Policy that needs to be put in place. Vendors to send in quotes for comparison- which was done by CM
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Initiated understanding present waste management strategy and auditing types of waste at the office.
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Realised how much water was being used for drinking and other purposes. Based on this a strategy is to be drawn.
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Organic food vendor came in to show pictures of her farm, what grows, who works there. Employees were encouraged to ask questions about the term 'organic" and state the difference between organic and conventional methods for growing crops.
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Second Organic food stall - more variety of produce brought in.
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"Surviving Progress" screening for all at TW.
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Study of the various cleaning reagents used at the office.
Stationary data collected for footprinting excercise. -
Discussion with vendors for quotes for commercial reverse osmosis unit.
Dishwash - a possible option for efficient use of water during washing of plates and utensils post lunch hour. -
Was decided the stall would be on Every Tuesday hereon.
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CM visited a set-up Ecodigestor to explore use at TW to manage all wet waste and reduce LPG usage.
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Meeting with Terrace Cooling Vendors for recommendations on how to bring down the temperature of the lunch area - terrace.
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Initiation of study to Green Server Room at the Office
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Indian E-waste Rules for Bulk consumers presented with Form 2. E-waste is considered one of the major microprojects along with other waste management plans to be put in place.
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Volunteer Meet - to explain various technologies that can be used to ensure efficient energy, water and waste management.,
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Studying CCTV footage - to identify areas of high traffic movement and low traffic movement so as to suggest Interventions to be recommended according to area and duration of use.
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Organinc Food Stall ongoing and gaining popularity among employees. Information constantly put up on the the term organinc, farms that produce the goods that come to the office, farmer & group of small farmers they work with, produce, recipes etc.
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Visit to office service apartments and guest houses to understand energy,waste, water management practices taking place.
Employees usually stay in 3star or service apts. -
Prelim study of RWH potential and contacting of vendors for quotes.
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Movie "Future of Food" to discuss Genetically modified foods. The effect of GMO on natural variety of plants and thus its effect on world food.
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To present technology solutions . vendor quotes and cm recommendations.
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Highlight of this organic stall - bananas!
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Talk on the number of chemicals in home and office cleaning reagents. Discussion on what the less toxic, easier-on-environment alternatives could be..
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Study of the materials that can be salvaged from the office when moving to another.
Study results to be presented at next volunteer meet. -
Meeting to introduce the project to the housekeeping staff
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Meet to go over recommendations and present asset salvage data.
Plan for the New year discussed. -
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Initiate "Elephant in the Room" Campaign
elephant in the room - halfway through the project sunshine, as new year vacations set in and there was a break in continuity, to bring some zing back into the project, the Elephant in the Room campaign was initiated. Title given to describe the most obvious things around us that we all refuse to talk about. -
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To go over next steps and decide on training calenders
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Discussion on time the initiation of waste management plan
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Mock Training for TW volunteers so that they can take it forward and train other employees.
A presentation on waste management and the new signage was provided to all volunteers -
Housekeeping staff was fully on-board - and felt empowered enough to speak directly with employees if segregation norms were not being followed.
A separate training was done for the HK staff. -
CM encouraged TW volunteers to take charge of spreading awareness and training other employees on the new waste management practices in and around the office
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a completely symbiotic project - the waste segregation signs were put up and subsequent monitoring done by thoughtworkers. Interesting questions came up - where do medicine wrappers go? can ice-cream stalks go into dry waste if licked clean.
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Considering that most waste that does not get segregated at sourc ends up in a landfill, it is decided that putting an effective waste segregation system will be the first 'Intervention at TW, Bangalore. Of course, it has to be preceded by an Audit of the types and quantity of waste generated
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Considering the client was a software firm, there was sufficient electronic and electrical "not in use" inventory. The 2-day long audit conducted by CM also revealved electronic equipment in working condition. In light of the recent E-Waste Rules by the Govt., this becomes an imprtant area to address
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Submission of the TW CLosing Report
This Closing report is not just an academic document, it is also a training manual for replicating the process in other ThoughWorks locations. It is also a detailed recommendation document for the ThoughtWorks Management to discuss budgeting and evaluate vendors
Decisions pending... -
The success and failure of a sustainability initiative depends to a large extent on data - about energy, water, waste and materials. Even as the other tracks of Project Sunshine slow down, data collection continues.
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TW goes into a period of year-end budgeting and internal appraisals. On the agenda is to budget the Biogas plant for the TW cafeteria and the Reverse Osmosis plant to create a closed-loop water management system.
Project Sunshine will re-convene in a couple of months, continueing to hand-hold ThoughtWorks administration and management through the implementation phase -
The drivers and desired outcomes of Communication for the next phase will be different from the previous Sensitisation phase. CM will design and use appropriate tools, and continue to keep the Communication exercise inter-active, relevant and exciting
