ThoughtRiver is committing to combat the Climate Crisis with the kick-off of several environmental projects and the creation of a new role of Environment Officer to lead them. Here, Marcus tells us what his new role involves and how we can make a difference.
A new role - Environment Officer
I was lucky enough to be appointed as our first Environment Officer to forge our new commitments to the Climate. ThoughtRiver quickly noticed my passion for the environment and gave me a mandate to make meaningful changes within our business, and negotiate with others outside of it. A proportion of my time has been ring-fenced for running our environment projects, leaving me with a strong sense of engagement and hope that we can tackle climate change together.
We are committing to our environment
I am now overseeing multiple environmental projects with the collective aim of completely removing our environmental impact. So far, we have committed to offsetting all emissions from air travel, and have started a Climate Committee to collaborate with our neighbours. The new committee is fully engaged with our building managers to move forwards with water-saving initiatives, switching to a 100% renewable energy supply, and exchanging all lights for motion-sensitive LED fittings - concrete results are already being seen.
Further down the pipeline are investigations into a carbon-neutral cloud offering for our products, divestment of our pension funds from fossil fuels, and electric car charging points at our offices. We will also be working with the Cambridge Technology Climate Action Network (CTCAN) to contribute to the efforts of businesses throughout Cambridge, sharing what we are doing and showing that climate action can be taken quickly and to economic benefit. I am currently in the process of drafting some objectives and key results (OKRs) for the company, which will both stretch us and hold us accountable.
To add to this, the core ThoughtRiver platform also has huge potential to assist moving towards a more sustainable future for our clients. Currently, legal documents are very often printed out just to be read with notes added in the margins, in much the same way as has been happening for hundreds of years. ThoughtRiver's core mission is to digitise the world's contracts, and if we succeed, we will have made a real difference to the amount of paper consumed on a daily basis. We intend to track the impact of this, and will publish the results on our brand new environment page. We will also continue to report our general progress in future blog posts, so stay tuned!
We can still stop the Climate Crisis
I believe that if we all stop and think about what is important, and what we want for our children who will inherit the climate that we leave them, we can make tangible our hopes and turn this crisis around. We can create a fairer, wholly sustainable society that more highly values our health, our happiness, and a safe, clean and sustainable environment for all.
A small request
If there is one thing you take away from this post, let it be this: our future is up to you and me - to all of us. So let's work together - individuals and businesses alike - to make that future a bright one with blue skies, healthy oceans, and clean air for everyone. I appreciate very much that my business is supporting me, so if I or ThoughtRiver can help you on your journey to zero emissions and sustainability in any way, we would love to hear from you here.
