The AKQA London office engaged in a “walk to work day.” The video, complete with soundtrack, shows their small push for green living. We asked you guys if your agency was even a little green. The good:
“I work for an office of JWT and they are definitely trying to practice what they’re preaching. They supplied each of us with a re-usable water thermos and a coffee mug to get rid of all the paper and plastic cups throughout the agency. They also posted signs all over the place to tell people how they can save energy and be less wasteful. Sure, the agency has other problems like any other shop does, but they seem to be taking the “green” thing seriously from what I can tell.”
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The bad:
“I hate to think how many trees are chopped for a single presentation. Every agency I have ever been with in NYC had both recycling bins and garbage bins and they both ended up in the same place at the end of the day: the trash.”
And the ugly:
“The last agency I worked for ONLY stocked the kitchen with white styrofoam cups. Being the semi-granola, big-mouthed fool that I am prompted me to send an email inquiring about a possible switch over to re-usable cups, or in the least, replacing the cup stash with plastic dixie cups in an effort to cut down on our carbon “footprint.” Mind you this was week 2 of working at this agency. Boy was that a nightmare… I almost instantly received emails left and right from all dept.’s warning me of the ramifications of the email I had just sent out, something regarding the president of the company “having a thing about his cups.”
That was the most specific response I received until a few days later the president decided to do a “reply all” (hitting the entire agency) with the quip, “hasn’t someone told the new guy about my cups?”Later it turned out he had some unworked out OCD issues, one of which being that he could only drink from styrofoam cups, and therefore felt it necessary to make it an “unwritten company policy” that the cups were to be used if you did not provide your own. My guess was so that he didn’t feel like some sort of “special case” if he showed up to a meeting being the only one sporting his styrofoam cup of water + styrofoam cup of coffee (he was also unable to have one without the other… yet another trait I would later learn).
That should have been a red-flag right off the bat, but I was too busy trying to brainstorm with the rest of our team about how to promote one of our clients as being a “Green, Eco-Friendly Home.”
We’re asking again so that we can create a master list of agencies. Where do you work? Is it even a little green?