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.