The Office of Caritas Alba-Iulia recieved diploma for Jury recognition on outstanding performance
First European Green Office Award winners announced in Brussels
On the 22nd of November 2013 an Award Ceremony for the European Green Offices takes place in Brussels. 22 nominees for the Award entered from 6 European countries representing companies from micro to large, NGOs and public sector institutions. The Award Ceremony will take place along with the European Green Office Network closing event – a conference called “Environmental innovation for offices”*.
Csaba Bodroghelyi, the Manager of the European Green Office Network: “Greening on offices can be a stepping stone in motivating top management to transfer good green practices elsewhere in the company.”
The event takes place in partnership with the Brussels Chamber of Commerce (BECI). “It is important to support the implementation of green practices in offices as part of a sustainable economic development, because the service sector represents more than 90 % of employment in Brussels, and more than 70 % in Belgium”, stated Jan De Brabanter, the Deputy Secretary General of Brussels Chamber of Commerce.
European Green Office Awards are the result of a competition among organisations from 6 EU countries that participated in the European Green Office project, which included training and tutoring offices by the European Green Office Network. The 22 nominee applications were evaluated by an international jury composed of Ms Helka Julkunen (WWF Finland), Ms Claudia Koll (German Federal Ministry for the Environment), Ms Maria Passalaqua (EMAS Club Barcelona) and Mr Tomas Ekström (Kinnarps AB and FSC Sweden).
Winners of the European Green Office Awards are as follows:
LARGE OFFICES
SAP (Hungary) – some good examples: bicycle parking area, green meeting room, green procurement policy, significant employee involvement.
Unilever (Hungary) – significant CO2 reduction, environmentally redesigned kitchen, free gym for all employees, the whole staff cleaning the office surrounding.
MEDIUM OFFICES
Tetra PAK (Hungary) – significant improvements, e.g. 100% of used paper is recycled, using only eco-labelled materials, one person – one flower initiative, very nice communication materials and tips.
SMALL OFFICES
Tchibo (Hungary) – simple, but well-working initiatives, e.g. „No printing day”, 10 Green Office rules for all employees, separate Green Office related subpage on their webpage, action „Stay fit!”.
MICRO OFFICES
Ruse Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Bulgaria) – weekly meetings for environmental communication, set green procurement rules, all the toxic detergents replaced with the eco-labelled ones, paper towels replaced with the textile ones.
PUBLIC OFFICES
Municipality of Újbuda (Hungary) – outstanding performance and inspiring examples: green library, solar panels, public gardens, eco-excursions, eco-idea box in the office etc.
In addition to the winner awards, special prizes were given to:
- for Best Communication to Mundo B – Brussels Sustainable House and Mundo-Namur – Green Property (Belgium)
- for Best Management System to Aerodrom Ljubljana, D.D (Slovenia)
- for Best Green Procurement to Oxfam International EU Advocacy Office (Belgium)
Awards are original artwork by Ljuba Atanasova.
Background:
The conference and the Award Ceremony are organised in the framework of European Green Office Network project, funded by the Leonardo Da Vinci Life Long Learning programme for the period 2011-2013. This project connects 7 organisations from 6 different member states (Belgium, Bulgaria, Estonia, Hungary, Romania and Slovenia). Its main goal was to train office managers from public, private and NGO sector to improve the environmental performance of their offices. A toolbox composed of four innovative elements (handbook, self assessment checklist, ecological footprint calculator, virtual office) was developed: http://www.eugreenoffice.eu/TOOLBOX. Additional information about the project results: http://www.eugreenoffice.eu/en/