How Welocalize Teams Support and Protect Our Planet
In the spirit of this year’s Earth Day, we wanted to share how our incredible Welocalize colleagues invest in our planet and how they are making lasting changes (big or small) to protect our planet’s future. Every choice and change we make adds up to make a lasting impact!
It’s amazing to see the actions our teams are taking to tackle climate change in their global and local communities. Sharing ideas and inspiration to help and educate each other on what we can do to make a change.
Read how some of our Welocalize team celebrate and invest in our planet and are making positive changes to make a difference.
Litter Picking
Some of our awesome team at Adapt recently joined together to help out in their community in Bath, UK. The team took some time out to litter pick and clean up the local area. Litter picking can help restore natural environments, allowing wildlife to thrive, and makes spaces better for people to enjoy too!
“Some of the team and I from the Bath, UK office spent a couple of hours picking up litter in the city. We filled three black bags with litter we found on the floor, in bushes and all around.” – Jack Sladek, Account Director.
Greener Solutions for Waste
Throwing away pet waste in the trash contributes to landfill overflow and methane production, and waste can leach into the soil and water. It’s great to switch from traditional plastic to compostable bags, but even compostable bags have trouble fully decomposing in traditional landfills. Courtney Ermac, Global Administration & Facilities Manager, has an adorable dog, a pug called Butternut. She wanted to find a greener solution for her waste.
“After some simple internet research, I found Green Pet Composting, a local service in our area! They pick up pet waste each week and take it to their local facility for environmentally sustainable composting. The resulting organic soil can be safely used for other things, like landscaping. This is a small change, but we’re diverting over 273 pounds of waste per year! That’s a lot for a little pug.”
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
Recycling is a super easy way of doing your bit for the environment. Anything we can do to reduce waste going to landfill is a positive. Recycling means fewer greenhouse gas emissions (recycled goods have a 30-80% lower carbon footprint) and improved materials circularity.
Jessica Walker, Linguistic Tester, shared “I support our planet by recycling cans. I collect them and drop them off at a recycling center. I do other things as well such as using reusable bags and limiting my electric use outside of work. It’s important to do our best to take care of where we live.”
“I believe that buying recycled, especially domestically produced recycled goods made with post-consumer waste, is one of the easiest and most impactful ways you can positively impact the planet and build towards a more circular economy.” – Raluca Berger, Technology Linguistic Tester.
Grow Your Own
Growing your own fruit, vegetables, and plants can be really beneficial for the environment, reducing air pollution and your carbon footprint by not having produce travel thousands of miles across the world. We have some very keen gardeners in our Welocalize family:
“Our family is always looking for ways to make a better impact on our planet (less packaging, less food waste, less unnecessary consumption) and when my kids started being old enough to understand the lifecycle of plants, we started gardening their favorite vegetables. We’re going strong for the fourth year of broccoli, peas, and tomatoes now.” – Rosalie Henke, Project Manager.
“We have our own little vegetable patch, this way we try to make less use of plastics and pesticides, which are quite bad for the planet. We also enjoy healthier vegetables and fruits, which are really a lot tastier than store-bought ones!” – Lorena Mérida, Project Manager.
“If your space allows grow your own veggies and fruits. No plastic packaging is required when you harvest vegetables straight from your garden, they travel zero miles to get to your plate, and no harsh chemicals are used to rush their growth.” – Rita Bernath, Project Manager.
Supporting Organizations Fighting Climate Change
There are loads of organizations around the world who are working to find solutions to end climate change. Our Director, Analytics Solutions, Kevin Havice is passionate and fighting global warming and regularly supports these organizations to try and have a positive impact:
“I’m a big supporter of 350.org, an organization working to end the use of fossil fuels. For years, I’ve donated to them and participated in their events. I give my vote to leaders whose policies will help us transition off fossil fuels, and I also use fossilfreefunds.org to divest my retirement plan from fossil fuel companies.”
Reducing Plastic Consumption
Plastic packaging is a huge contributor to global warming, with over eight million pieces of plastic making their way into the ocean every day. There are lots of small changes we can make to help reduce this.
“I’ve tried to make lots of small changes to reduce what I throw away and my plastic waste. Some of the changes I’ve made are as simple as using a reusable water bottle and coffee cup, to using refillable toiletries, like deodorant and shampoo bars, and reusable, washable cotton pads.” – Niamh Sheehan, Global Marketing Executive.
For Senior Linguist, Zoe Gibert, her top resolution for 2021 was to consume differently: more local, more healthy, more ethical, and more planet-friendly. “I decided to become a member-owner of my local food cooperative: Demain Supermarché, based in Lyon, France. This grocery store is owned by the people who shop there.”
Upcycling Clothing and Textiles
The fashion industry is one of the most taxing industries on climate change and pollution, making up about 4% of the total greenhouse gases globally. Glory Reichelt, Administrative Assistant, has a small side hustle upcycling slightly flawed clothing and textiles with dye and alterations.
“I try to always reuse and give clothing new life to show others how you can creatively consume less and get plenty of mileage out of the things you already own. I hope it encourages people to stop buying new things they don’t need all the time and slow down their consumption. Plus, it’s really fun!”
Check out this video to see more of the positive changes from our global teams across the world.
Find out more about Earth Day 2022 and how you can invest in our planet here.
