StartDock Quarterly Impact Update
In our quarterly update, we aim to provide insight into our initiatives. We will continue to share our progress towards these goals. With this update, we want to reflect on our achievements so far, the challenges we have encountered, and the areas in which we can further improve.
Max Koningen
on October 4, 2023
By sharing our progress and objectives, we hope to inspire others to join us on this journey towards a more sustainable future. We warmly invite you to join us. Together, we can make a lasting difference for our planet and community and create a more sustainable world for future generations.
Quarterly Recap: Q3 2023
The third quarter at StartDock was entirely focused on obtaining our B Corp certification, a journey we've been working on for a long time. But this was far from the only goal we achieved. Read more below about our performance in the past quarter:
StartDock = B Corp
Our biggest milestone of the past quarter was achieving our B Corp certification. We embarked on the journey to become a B Corp at the beginning of 2022, and so far, this has been our most significant project in terms of our impact.We are pleased to announce that we are officially B Corp certified with a score of 84.5! This achievement was celebrated during a gathering of B Corp Benelux at the Royal Tropical Institute. However, we are not resting on our laurels. In three years, we face recertification with even stricter requirements!
Carbon Ofsetting
After earlier this year mapping the amount of CO2 emissions from our buildings, we have now taken the step to compensate for these emissions ourselves. In collaboration with Docker Cawa (read more about how Cawa is assisting us) (https://startdock.nl/en/blog/carbon-credits/), we now monthly report our calculated CO2 emissions, for which we purchase CO2 credits. While we are aware that this is not the complete solution to the problem, we want to contribute our part to reducing CO2 emissions.
World Clean Up Day
On September 16, 2023, we celebrated 'World Clean Up Day' worldwide. Since this day fell on a Saturday, and both we and our Dockers were enjoying our well-deserved weekend, we organized a 'clean-up walk' in Amsterdam and Rotterdam on September 15 to make the surroundings of our locations cleaner. During this walk, we collected 17 full garbage bags of litter from the area. The litter pickers remain available at our locations, so if you ever want to participate in a litter pick-up again, you can pick them up at the reception!
Rain Barrel
At our location on Keizersgracht, we have taken the responsibility to provide water to the garden at the back of the building. Community Manager Anouk suggested using rainwater instead of tap water, which is an environmentally friendly option. Therefore, in the past quarter, we installed a rain barrel in the Keizersgracht garden, which collects rainwater from the gutters. This allows us to water the garden in a sustainable manner.
Waste disposal
Unfortunately, during the past quarter, the company that assisted us with waste separation ceased its services. In Rotterdam, we addressed this by establishing a collaboration with Oscar Circlair. (https://oscarcirculair.nl/) In Amsterdam, we are still searching for a new partner for waste separation. We hope to find a solution for this soon!
What's next: Q4 2023
In the meantime, we are entering the final quarter of the year, a period that is always very busy for us. Nevertheless, we continue to focus on the following points during this period:
- We have observed from our energy consumption data that the central heating boilers at some locations can be better adjusted. We will address this in the new quarter.
- We aim to find a new partner for waste separation in Amsterdam in Q4 so that we can continue to separate waste at our locations.
- We are continuing our efforts to make our buildings smarter. The goal is still to automate the lighting in common areas this year.
- We are further concentrating on finding new sustainable suppliers.
- We are exploring the possibility of offering incentives or discounts to companies that conduct business in a sustainable manner. We aim to present a plan for this in Q4.
We invite you to join us. If you have feedback or input regarding our goals and performance, please do not hesitate to contact us at impact@startdock.nl! We look forward to taking more steps in the next quarter as well.