Happy New Year! Most of us start the new year with a resolution. Here at Seibert Media, our resolution is near and dear to us - sustainability! We aim to continue and improve how we operate sustainably. That is why "sustainability" has been one of our corporate values since 2019. It is important to us to treat our customers, colleagues, and the environment responsibly. But what are we doing at Seibert Media to be sustainable and not just engage in greenwashing?

Sustainability has many facets for us at Seibert Media: we prefer leaving the car at home and using bikes or public transport. We take good care of our bees on our own “Seibert field”, where we also plant vegetables and flowers. We produce sustainability reports, participate in a cooperation program for corporate environmental and climate protection, and even have our own sustainability team. Of course, there is so much more!

Importantly, we are not satisfied with the status quo -  we see sustainability as a challenge to continually search for ways to operate as a company that conserves resources and makes ecological sense.

In this article, we delve a little deeper into the topic and look back at the year 2023: What contribution did we make to climate protection and the sustainable development of our company this year?

Mobility - Sustainable Travel

By car, bus, train, bike, or on foot: how do you get from A to B? Driving is convenient and, depending on the infrastructure, hardly avoid able, but it emits a lot of pollutants. That's why we at Seibert Media try to offer our employees various alternatives that allow them to use the car less or even completely avoid it.

For example, we subsidize a regional “job ticket” - this allows employees to travel on all public transport throughout the region. Employees also have the option to lease a company bike or e-scooter on an individual-based contract. Moreover, for longer distance or heavy luggage transport, we provide company cars for carpooling, which can also be used for private use.

Bicycles are an agile means of transportation, especially in the city. However, even longer journeys to work can be covered by bike, as our colleague Tobias found out in a self-experiment back in 2019. It was only natural that we participated in Wiesbaden's "City Cycling" event. Between June 4 and 24, 21 active cyclists pedaled a total of 3,149 kilometers (approx. 1,950 miles)! This corresponds to saving 510.2 kilograms (approx. 316 miles) of CO2 compared to traveling these distances by car. Of course, we plan to participate in City Cycling in the coming years—can we count on you?

The World of Animals and Plants: Bees, Baumbert, and the Seibert Field

At Seibert Media, we are passionate about animals and plants—and we're not just talking about our adorable four-legged office visitors and the numerous houseplants in our offices. Alongside expert beekeeper Tom Junghans, we also care for our five bee colonies on the Seibert field in Wiesbaden-Naurod, where we cultivate flowers, fruit, and vegetables.

Martin, one of our founders, recently visited our field and provided an update on the well-being of our ecosystem heroes in his video.

Last, but not least, there's Baumbert, our city tree! You may already know him if you follow us on Instagram.

By participating in this wonderful campaign by the Wiesbaden Foundation, we are contributing to making our city a little greener. We recently visited Baumbert in the autumn rain and captured a snapshot. The collage shows what it looks like during the other seasons.

Delicious Food at Seabird - Healthy and Sustainable

If you've attended a training course, workshop, or one of our events this year, you've likely already had the pleasure of trying the food prepared by our “team foodie”. You'll understand why we, as employees, love lunch at our Seabird restaurant so much! Our chefs, Thorsten and Dennis, place great importance on sustainable cooking.

In concrete terms, this means utilizing regional and seasonal organic products wherever possible. Topics such as zero waste and homemade convenience food also play a significant role at Seabird. Did you know, for example, that you can make stock from vegetable scraps? Or that you can easily create breadcrumbs from leftover bread? And, let's be honest: homemade pesto tastes much more intense and better than store-bought pesto from a jar.

We all have a role to play when it comes to sorting waste anyway: by disposing of our leftovers, napkins, bottles, crown caps and other waste correctly and separately, we help to ensure that large quantities of waste can be recycled.

Balcony Power Plants, Photovoltaics and Carrots

Would you like to produce your own electricity, even if it's just a portion of it? But perhaps you lack the space or means to install a solar power system on your roof? You can still do it on a smaller scale—with a balcony power plant! This photovoltaic module can be hung on the balcony railing or facade in the sunniest location possible, or installed in the garden and connected to the grid.

Our colleagues learned more about this innovation in an informational session. In collaboration with our partner, Kegon, our sustainability team explained the legal and technical aspects to consider. Additionally, our colleague Torsten shared his experiences with photovoltaics, electric cars, and e-bikes in another session.

However informational sessions are not the only initiatives we employ to demonstrate to our colleagues how they can be more sustainable. We also incorporate gamification: in our sustainability game "Do the Carrots"—a result of a hackathon project—we collect (virtual) carrots to contribute to climate action! For every sustainability tip that a person implements, they earn one (or more) carrots. To provide a better idea, here's an example on the topic of "heat":

Rhine Clean Up Day: Because Our Nature Is Not a Garbage Can

We enjoy getting our hands dirty for a clean environment. On Rhine Clean Up Day, which took place on September 9, 2023, in Wiesbaden, we joined forces with our partner, Kegon,  near the Schierstein harbor to pick up garbage.

For a Greener Outlook - Our Sustainability Team

A few years ago, Seibert Media established its sustainability team (and last year, an additional sustainability coordination group) that delves deeply into the topic, takes action, and propels it forward throughout the company. While most team members contribute during their slack time (a part of our working hours available to every employee for other projects or developing new ideas), our colleague Manuel was specifically hired to ensure greater sustainability at Seibert Media.

The team has big plans - and at the beginning of 2023, they developed the following vision for the year 2030: "Through consistent and holistic sustainability management, we exceed the current sustainability benchmarks and, as pioneers, are a beacon for other companies."

In the next sections, we take a closer look at what our Sustainability team has achieved this year to get closer to this goal.

CSR Regio.Net - Responsible corporate governance in medium-sized companies

Seibert Media is a member of the CSR Regio.Net network, which assists SMEs in enhancing their corporate social responsibility activities and addressing the topic of responsible corporate governance. Through joint meetings with other companies, we have the opportunity to learn about CSR topics, exchange ideas with them, and engage with experts.

The kick-off event to get to know the other companies took place at the beginning of the year. After the pandemic, these meetings are now happening again at the network partners' premises. We find it very exciting to think outside the box, take off our "industry and company blinkers," and gather new ideas.

Our colleague Nils also participated in the CSR Regio.Net practical visit to Essity Operations Mainz-Kostheim GmbH in September. Alongside a plant tour, there was fascinating information about the family-run company's longstanding and intensive commitment to the social environment and the environment.

Ecoprofit Certification - Proof of Sustainable Action

Our commitment to greater sustainability at Seibert Media is documented in black and white - we are “Ökoprofit-certified”. The Ökoprofit environmental program (Ecological Project for Integrated Environmental Technology) is a cooperative initiative involving the regional economy, administration, and experts. The program's goal is to reduce operational emissions, conserve natural resources, increase eco-efficiency, and promote greater awareness of the environment and sustainability.

After our first round of Ökoprofit in 2020/21, we became members of the Ökoprofit Club in 2022, and at the end of October this year, we were re-certified. Our colleagues, Kerstin and Lara, proudly received the certificate.

The Wiesbaden Ökoprofit companies for 2022/2023 have achieved annual savings of over 1.3 million euros with around 330 evaluated measures, most of which have already been implemented, as reported by Wiesbaden.de. This translates to approximately 1.4 million kilowatt-hours of electricity, over 3.2 million kilowatt-hours of heat, around 120,000 liters of fuel, more than 3.5 million kilograms of CO2 emissions, almost 25 million sheets of paper, and over 4.6 million liters of water being saved. We are delighted to have contributed to these impressive results!

Participation in the Federal Project for the Development of an Environmental Management Platform per EMAS

Until now, we had to manually input our environmental data, collected for programs like Ökoprofit, into endless tables and store it locally - but collaborative and efficient work calls for a different approach. When we were seeking testers for a new Eco-Management and Audit Scheme (EMAS) environmental management platform that promised a centralized and simpler solution to our problem-  of course we eagerly volunteered!

As one of several EMAS starter companies, we are now participating in the pilot project to be certified according to EMAS standards. Recognizing that this is a long-term project requiring substantial effort, we are highly motivated to take on the challenge! 

Outlook T4AT 2023: Sustainability Starts with Product Development

From November 29 to December 1, 2023, we will once again host THE agile conference of the year - Tools4AgileTeams (T4AT). At this event, Jutta Eckstein will deliver a keynote speech perfectly aligned with the theme of this blog article: "The world is sending S.O.S.! Sustainability starts with product development". In her presentation, she will discuss how the software life cycle contributes to direct and indirect CO2 emissions and share insights on committing to sustainability in software development right from the start.

Don't want to miss this? Head over to our T4AT website and use the voucher code TEILNAHME-23 to secure your free online ticket!

Together for a More Sustainable Future

As you can see, we've accomplished a lot this year to give back to our environment and minimize our carbon footprint. Despite celebrating our initial successes, we continue to learn from our interactions with other companies and have several milestones ahead as we strive toward our vision for 2030.

And if there's one thing we know,  it's that every small contribution to a more sustainable world is a step in the right direction. As Yoko Ono wisely said: "Every drop in the ocean counts."

Further Reading

• Rise and Shine! How Are Our Seibert Bees Doing After the Winter?   
• Sustainability Is the Way to Bee
• Urban gardening with //SEIBERT/MEDIA: Now with real garden beds instead of trash cans!
• Sustainability Management at Seibert Media