Winkler Partners has at its core, a commitment to environmental protection and sustainability, as well as a commitment to the constant professional development of our staff. In 2006, we established a Green Office Department, to undertake the greening of the office, implement methods to reduce our use of energy, promote the use of environmentally friendly products and services, design rainwater collection and conservation systems, reduce our carbon emissions and advocate for green office initiatives throughout our community by way of open visits to our office and roof garden. As part of that commitment, we will be publishing annual reports on how we are performing. At a glance, in 2017 we managed to:

• Cut our total emissions by 57% over 2016’s total. Our total emissions for 2017 were 44 tons CO2e.
• Install solar panels which produced 5,274 kilowatt hours of electricity in the last four months of 2017. By doing this, we saved a total of NT$24, 546 (approx. US$835) from our energy bills between August and December 2017. We were also able to sell 10% of the energy generated back to the grid for use by other customers.
• Reduce overall electricity usage by 2%. Since 2004 we have reduced electricity usage by 56%. Anyone can make the same reductions by using air-conditioning sparingly, installing energy efficient lighting and setting computers to sleep.
• Reduce our water usage by 3%. We increased the amount of rainwater we can collect from our roof and installed water-saving toilets throughout the office.
• Implement a carbon offset policy for air travel, which accounted for 65% of our total 2017 emissions. We do this by partnering with fellow B Corp ClimateCare.
• Reduce single-use cup and lunchbox container waste by 19%. Total waste however increased by 2%, mainly due to an increase in staff numbers.

Goals for 2018

For the coming year, we plan to continue our energy saving initiatives to further reduce our carbon footprint by 5%. To achieve this we will be increasing monitoring of air-conditioning/heating loss from open windows and doors as well as turning off all computers and extension cables after one hour. Staff training will also be increased. The full report is available in English here and in Chinese here. For inquiries regarding our energy saving initiatives or B Corporation certification, please contact James Hill at jhill@winkerpartners.com.

As part of our mission to contribute to the wider community, the general public is welcome to visit our roof garden to learn about urban farming and our green office program. To arrange a visit, please contact City Shen at +886 (0)2 2311-2345 ext. 346 or cshen@winkerpartners.com.