BetterNow environmental and climate policy

BetterNow’s mission is to make the world more generous. This also requires us to be generous to our climate, environment and general surroundings. Our goal is to be carbon neutral by end 2020. In addition to this we have a strong focus on protecting the general environment and avoid wasting resources.    

This blog post is slightly re-written version of our internal guidelines.

Paper-free company

In an effort to minimise waste and resources consumed, BetterNow have been a paper free company since 2016. In practical terms this means that  

 
• No material is printed on paper,
 
• No document is stored in paper format,
 
• That we don’t have access to printers,
 
• That we never print or hand-out marketing material on paper,

Exceptions to the rule are physical books and personal notes on paper are also within the limits of this policy.

Remote work

BetterNow is a remote-first workplace. This means that our work environment, work routines and IT tools are designed first and mostly for remote work. All employees in BetterNow work from home. This is a workplace policy rather than an environmental policy, but it has some strong environmental benefits.

 
• No commute. We save an estimated 1.329 kg of CO2 per employee by doing this.
 
• Saving on heating and other office related cost. By re-using existing housing and heating, resources are saved on heating.

Travel

By far, the biggest carbon footprint by BetterNow is made when we travel. We have therefore put in place this travel policy.  

Avoid travel when possible

When possible avoid travel. We should always ask if a meeting can be done over video instead of as a physical meeting. When travelling, we have to make the most out of it and bundle meetings together. Travelling for a single meeting should be a very rare happening.  

An example of this, is that 3 out of 4 board meetings in BetterNow is done over video.

Use the least carbon intensive method of transport

When possible take the train instead of flying. Take a bus or other public transport instead of a taxi. Much can be done by designing and planning travel in advance to avoid unnecessary flights.  Useful examples of acceptable behaviour and non acceptable behaviour.

 
• Not acceptable: Flying between cities where train are ready available and just as fast or moderately slower. E.g. Gothenburg to Stockholm.
 
• Not acceptable: Taking a taxi to the airport with just one person, unless no other method of transportation is available.
 
• Should be avoided but acceptable: Flying between cities where taking a flight saves less than 5 hours of travel time. E.g. flying Stockholm to Copenhagen.
 
• Acceptable: Flying Copenhagen - Madrid.

When booking a flight, strong priority should be given to direct flights, rather than flights that includes transfer in an airport.

Carbon off-set all flights

If this is not done by the air air-carriers (e.g, SAS offsets all flights), it is the employees responsible to off-set the flight through Atmosfair and add the cost as part of the travel expenses.

Booking all hotels through Goodwings

Booking all hotels through Goodwings ensures that

 
• We are donating to charities with each hotel stay
 
• All hotel stays are automatically carbon offset

Hosting

The second largest carbon footprint by BetterNow is through the hosting of our servers and our IT tools.  

We are carbon offsetting for hosting on behalf of ourself and our customers. This includes both the hosting and the estimated carbon footprint by visitors to the sites.  

Our carbon offsetting certificate can be found here. Even though is issued for this website, it is paid for the total amount of visit to all sites we operate and maintain, both those in our name and those we host on behalf of our customers.