Sustainability Guidelines | Our values and efforts from A to Z
These guidelines have been written down as part of our first company report 2018. However their creation and enhancement goes way back. Together with our annual reports, they are intended to lead our path and our efforts towards greater sustainability and social responsibility in our company.
In order to guide our efforts in sustainability we established a set of guidelines for different areas:
- Food
- Electronic Devices
- Printing
- Merchandising
- Cleaning
- Energy
- Transport
- Partners
- Suppliers
These guidelines are also defined in our internal handbook and we take them into account for every company decision.
Food
For our Monthly Brunch, daily food at the office and our self-organized events, we should respect the following guidelines:
- Use organic food.
- If the food is produced inside the EU, it should have at least the EU organic label.
- If possible, use regionally produced food.
- Mainly vegetarian and vegan food.
- Do not throw food away. Think about foodsharing after events.
We trust in these labels
Electronic Devices
- Devices and consumables should have the Blauer Engel label, if available.
- New devices should have at least the Energy Star Label.
- Devices should have been manufactured under fair* conditions.
- Manufacturers should have a sustainable software policy to ensure a long usage
- e.g. very long software support - Synology, Sonos
- or the firmware should be open source with actively maintained projects
- e.g. Routers: OpenWRT, OPNsense
- e.g. Phones: LineageOS
* See the Ethical Guidelines for our understanding of the word "fair".
Printing
- Prefer not to print at all if possible.
- Instead, establish paperless processes.
- Use recycling paper.
- Use as default printer setting duplex and b/w.
Merchandising
- Use recyclable materials.
- Buy organically produced clothing.
- Make sure that the articles have been manufactured under fair conditions.
- Merchandising articles should have a practical use and should be used multiple times/over a time period > 1 month. Do not manufacture too much.
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Cleaning
- If possible, use biodegradable cleaning agents, soaps and detergents. Buy articles with at least the EU Ecolabel.
Energy
- Use green power. Only use suppliers with >99% regenerative energy (no CO₂ certificate greenwashing). If possible, use a supplier that reinvests into regenerative energy solutions.
- Switch off all devices when you leave the office.
Transport
- Prefer public transport if possible and economically viable.
- Prefer your bicycle if possible and economically viable.
Peerigon has a lot of passionate bikers. 2019 we did a bike tour for our birthday event at Lake Starnberg.
Partners
- Prefer partners that have sustainable and fair processes.
- Prefer partners that pay taxes at least inside the EU (better: Germany), without any tax tricks.
Suppliers
According to the principles of the Global Compact, the following topics should be considered regarding our suppliers:
Global Compact
We want to work actively with suppliers whose level of data protection corresponds to that of the EU and who focus on data security and data economy. In the case of suppliers based in the USA, it should be noted that they should either comply with the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework or that they can give us a dedicated DPA (Data Processing Amendment) where they state that they handle data in accordance with the GDPR.
That means for us:
- We actively choose and prefer suppliers who share our values and ethical attitude (see above)
- We prefer suppliers who minimize and compensate for their negative impact on the environment
- We prefer suppliers from our region (Augsburg + 150 km)
- We do not support suppliers who openly violate the above-mentioned topics
We check our suppliers regularly on:
- Social issues (e.g. company values, guidelines for sustainability and fairness, code of conduct)
- Ecological issues (e.g. delivery distance for reducing emissions, recyclability)
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