Invest in our people = invest in our planet

Cundall was formed in 1976 and it was the determination of the founding partners to create a business that focussed on investing in the best people and creating the best projects, with sustainability at the core.

There have been many milestones in the last 46 years. Cundall won the National Green Building of the Year Award in 1994 with one of the first low energy hospitals, launched our Cundall Diploma which aims to train all our staff to design more sustainably and in 2020 we achieved carbon neutral certification. Our staff are the reason we have been able to achieve so much.

This week we celebrate Earth Day (22 April), we want to recognise our fantastic people who are leading initiatives around the world to enable us to live and work more sustainably. This year we are sharing their initiatives to invest back into our planet, and hopefully inspire individuals and companies to make these changes too.

Give power to your people

Our SusTeams have been long established and have made some impressive changes. Work has been undertaken across all our offices to understand where the most waste is coming from and put plans in place to reduce this. Initiatives include:

• Sourcing ethical and sustainable supplies to cut down on the amount of landfill products.
• Encouraging less printing and working digitally exclusively.
• Using the food waste, coffee grounds and tea bags as fertilizer on local allotments.
• Crisp packets recycled to make blankets for the homeless.

Across our offices, our SusTeams have run beach clean sessions which have grown from staff members participating to friends and family and our clients too. Planting trees has also been something our offices have engaged with, from planting a tree for each graduate joining that year to incentivising attendance at Cundall supported international sustainability events.

Educate your staff

Educating staff on carbon emissions in the food chain, cutting out waste but also reducing or removing unsustainable foods from diets like meat. Most offices have started offering milk alternatives which not only reduces waste but has a much smaller carbon footprint. Read more from our Newcastle office about the impact that switching to oat milk has. In our Hong Kong office, our staff are so passionate about recycling that they personally collect all their waste and take it to local recycling centres and watch it all being separated accordingly.

Our Dubai office is a strong advocate against single use plastic and have been working to reduce this at home and in the office. We have now pledged our support for the new Dubai Can initiative, playing our role through raising awareness and bringing industry leaders together to collaborate towards reducing single-use plastic.

In Sydney, the team has recognised that their lighting control system needs reviewing to ensure it is working as sustainably as possible. They are using our Lighting team to help make the changes required in the office and in their homes.

Share your knowledge

Our people have some fantastic ideas. But we want to take this one step further to enable this knowledge to be shared both internally and externally.

Josh Morland in our Newcastle office has allocated a day of his week to share his knowledge to benefit the community and those around him. From providing feedback to local government policies, offering his expertise for non-profit organisations and working to create places where people can grow their own food with Incredible Edible Clara.

Recognising Earth Day and other national and international days is a good reminder to think about what we have achieved and what more we can do. We shouldn’t be restricted by only talking and sharing ideas on these key days. We would love to hear what you are doing so please feel free to get in touch so we can continue to share and learn together.