Infometis' sustainability team consists of two employees, Maximilian Matthäus and Nishan Portoyan. Maximilian Matthäus discusses current developments in an interview.
Infometis is becoming sustainable, but what exactly does that mean?
Our guiding principle is: "We act responsibly towards society and the environment."
When we hear the word sustainability, we often think of ecology, but there are two other pillars of sustainability: the economy and society. Infometis strives to operate sustainably in all three pillars. We have further subdivided each of these three pillars into three thematic areas where we see the greatest potential for Infometis. We then determined our current position in these nine thematic areas and where we want to be in the next five years. From this, we derived concrete measures. Ultimately, all measures aim to contribute to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.
What are these nine subject areas?
In terms of ecology, these are: energy, mobility, and resources. In terms of economics: sustainable investments, high-quality work results, and transparency. And in terms of social responsibility, it's about choosing customers and partners responsibly, and last but not least, about Infometis itself treating its employees responsibly as an employer.
Let's go into detail: where do you stand in the energy sector and where do you want to go?
Energy is a very important topic right now, which is why we have given it priority. Infometis has so far sourced green electricity from ewz, some of which comes from certified power plants (ewz.natur).
We now plan to source a significant portion of our electricity from our own solar power system . We have already ordered a 30m² solar array from ewz, which will begin generating electricity for us at the Binz substation in January 2024. With this investment, we are financing locally produced, sustainable electricity and already covering more than half of our electricity needs. We will source the remaining portion through ewz's most sustainable electricity product, ewz.pronatur. This electricity is sourced exclusively from certified power plants within Switzerland, and with this electricity product, we also support the restoration of habitats in Switzerland. You can find more information on this EWZ page. In doing so, we are contributing to the Sustainable Development Goals 7: Affordable and Clean Energy, 9: Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure, and 13: Climate Action.
Does this mean the goal for the energy topic has been achieved?
Not yet. We've started a Slack channel where every employee can share a personal sustainability tip and then nominate someone else for their tip. We also want to encourage our employees to use renewable energy at home.
We haven't talked about heating yet, even though it's also part of the energy topic. Why?
We've rented an office space where we have no say in which heating system the landlord chooses. Furthermore, we can't adjust the heating temperature ourselves, so we can only partially influence our energy consumption. We follow general ventilation recommendations. Since we primarily work at client sites or from home, we limit ourselves to a relatively small office space, resulting in low energy consumption.
Are these environmental measures measurable? What is Infometis' overall environmental footprint?
According to myclimate.org, our ecological footprint for our 30 employees amounted to approximately 20 tons of CO2 in 2021. This calculation helped us identify areas where there is still room for improvement. Our emissions are comparatively low, and the largest contribution comes from mobility, as we are often on the road visiting our clients. You can learn more about mobility in our next blog post.
