Everywhere you look these days the Green movement is on the march.  So it came as little surprise, after finding out that I won the Nigerian Lottery for the third time this month, the next e-mail I opened was about the company working to become ISO 14001 compliant.  In other words, Genesys was going green.  Recycle bins hit the break rooms faster than the sweet-toothed assistant who got the e-mail about birthday cake.  Weekly education sessions disguised as trivia and puzzles motivated my co-workers to participate.  The Green movement was in full swing.

I’ve always recycled at home, and I never litter, thanks to the 1970’s ad campaign where the Native American cries a single tear after seeing the large pile of waste, but at work everything seemed to make its way into the closest trash can. After the wave of information provided by my company, something started happening to my environmentally apathetic attitude.  I started making the extra effort to sort my bottles and cans, and I’d walk the extra 20 feet to deposit waste paper into the proper recycle bin. 

Like an extended version of “The More You Know” the Genesys environmental policy was taking hold.  What really hit home were the statistics:

One London to New York flight emits around 1.54 tons of C02 emissions, which is equivalent to:

1. Leaving the TV on standby for 102 years
2. Leave your hairdryer on for 14 weeks
3. A Car idling for 28 days
4. The House lights on for 8 months
5. A Kettle boiling for 75 days 

This is exactly why I don’t fly anymore.  OK, maybe that’s not exactly true, but after learning the stats, I was introduced to the concept of offsetting.  Where I can donate money to plant trees to offset the CO2 emissions I create by traveling.  It’s kind of like the environmental equivalent of the give a penny take a penny.  Hopefully, more companies will become ISO 14001 compliant and the penny tray will overflow.

Erik Crawford, Web Marketing Manager