sustainability
Our Aim
Being an impact led organization, making our workplace and our co-working spaces as sustainable as possible is an area of high priority and focus for us. We understand that in order to achieve sustainable functioning one has to consider the highly interconnected nature of the concept. Therefore, we aim to be aware and take action towards implementing as many relevant measures as we can. We are not perfect, yet we are willing and eager to learn to be better.
With the Austrian Ecolabel we want to go one step further in this area. As a coworking and event location, we welcome many guests and members to our premises every day, so we try to implement as many environmentally friendly measures as possible.
Our sustainability philosophy
Emissions tracking
At Impact Hub Vienna we track our Scope 1, 2, 3 emissions across all of our locations according to the Greenhouse Gas Protocol. This emissions data then gets audited by an outside organisation to ensure that we are being strict and diligent with our data collection protocols. Emissions data is later used to set relevant targets and to enable reduction measure implementation.
Water & energy
By installing new water nozzles in our restroom facilities, we can save up to 80% in water usage. We also save energy with our wi-fi connected thermostats, which lower the temperature at night and keep it constant during the day. Moreover, we are working with a IHV member start-up ‘energytracking.eu’ who have installed their electricity monitoring system which is helping us determine our minute-by-minute electricity consumption. This enables us to act quickly and precisely when an issue is detected. Even though we run most of our offices on eco-certified renewable electricity, wasting the resource is not something we are into! Lastly, we have installed and are planning an expansion of honey-combed window blinds on the 3rd and 1st floor office spaces. They enable us to maintain a more comfortable internal temperature as the blinds keep the heat out during summer and keep the warmth in during winter.
Waste
Since we mainly use our in-house dishes for events as well as for our coworking community, we significantly reduce our waste in the area of disposable dishes.
When we serve catering, our portions are calculated based on the number of people to minimise unnecessary food waste during the ordering process. We encourage guests, through reusable signs around the buffet, to take only as much of the food as they can eat.
Our recycling stations invite proper waste separation. Additionally, to a large extent we have switched away from paper towels in favour of reusable cotton towel rolls. Moreover, to avoid office items being thrown out prematurely, we aim to sell or give-away items that are no longer needed on Willhaben (an Austrian item-selling platform).
Catering
For our events and functions we work with organic and Austrian eco-label certified partners as well as local businesses, some of which deliver by cargo-bike. When planning our events, we encourage guests to choose our vegan and vegetarian dishes, and we also offer a menu which was designed to have as little negative environmental impact as possible.
We visibly display allergen information at each buffet to best inform our guests with various intolerances.
Our reusable dishes and cutlery are in-house.
If there is leftover food from an event, it will be distributed in our community or taken by our food sharing partners.
Inclusivity
The vast majority of the ground floor in our Lindengasse offices is accessible via a wheelchair and there is a wheelchair accessible toilet. Access to the space is currently via a 75.5cm fold out ramp. A better solution is in the works. The space also has gender-neutral toilets for everyone’s use. Furthermore, we aim to be gender-language conscious in our online and offline written and spoken materials. Finally, we are committed to providing a space which is for the most-part fragrance-free. If smells need to be used, we only use the bare minimum and ensure that the products are natural (e.g. dried lavender).
Transportation
Due to our central location in the 7th district, we encourage all our guests to arrive by public transport or by bike.
The U3 station Zieglergasse is only a few minutes walk away, as well as the train and subway station Westbahnhof. This unique location makes it easy for our guests to reach us, both from within Austria and from abroad.
We also encourage and support environmentally friendly travel by bicycle. We have bicycle parking spaces in both of our courtyards to provide ample parking. And if there happen to be any mechanical problems with your bike, we are happy to offer the use of our bike toolbox.
Education
We have various notices and posters in our event and coworking spaces to inform and educate our guests, visitors, and (team) members on various initiatives regarding environmental protection. For example, there is a poster where participation in a biodiversity initiative is rewarded with free meeting hours in one of our conference rooms. In addition, Impact Hub Vienna supports team members who want to participate in nature conservation programs by offering a paid day-off to partake in their chosen project.
OUR PROGRESS
Certifications
