We are excited to hold our
5th Annual 3form GreenWeek - the week each year when we focus our attention and reflect as an entire company on the environment and our collective environmental performance. For this milestone year we took a retrospective look at our achievements and dedicated ourselves to personal initiatives moving forward. We’ve learned these past 5 years that change and progress stem from the actions of individuals and culminate in the collaboration of many. Inspired by an inspirational pre-GreenWeek visit from Majora Carter, we focused on the power of the individuals to shape their environment and community. We’ve tried to implement this focus in the following ways:
Employee Challenges
- Each employee focuses on a new sustainable behavior for one week
- Each employee journals the obstacles and rewards of this challenge
- Employee challenge journals are featured on a new GreenWeek Community Board
Department Projects
- Each department is in charge of a green improvement project for the 3form campus
- Projects include creating picnic areas, new bike racks, showers and more
- Each project is designed to encourage 3form employees to spend more time outdoors, exercise and commute without fossil fuels
Inspirational GreenWeek Activities
- Enjoy a screening of No Impact Man
- Learn about county wide environmental initiatives from Salt Lake County Mayor
- Plant trees for shade, food and environmental impact
As we rise to our individual and group challenges we hope to have perpetual and vigorous discussions on how to live better.
As always, we took the time to review our progress on our Path-to-Zero
Learn more about our Employee Challenges
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Give up Red Meat or be a Vegetarian for a Week
Employees researched the effect of eating meat, or red meat, on the environment and dedicated a week to consciously avoiding meat in their diet. Most in this group didn’t feel a difference in their energy level or felt deprived at all and appreciated the new knowledge they had gained on the subject.
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Give up Fast Food for a Week
The wrappings, the excessive transportation, the unhealthy practices in producing low-cost meat – fast food causes many damages to the environment. Employees in this group appreciated the healthly feeling of avoiding fast-food for a week, even if it took a little extra planning.
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Prepare a Dish Using Only Local Ingredients
Using local ingredients reduces the energy used to transport foods. Eating locally also usually ensures supporting organically grown food and farmers with other positive practices. Employees in this group found a diverse range of local food providers to create dishes for all meals of the day – breakfast, lunch and dinner.
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Prepare and Implement a Plan to Grow your own Food
Large-scale farms require an enormous amount of water and energy to operate as well as inundated with pesticides to ensure crop yields are cost-effective. To avoid these hurdles, and to develop a deeper connection with the food entering their bodies, this group was challenged with growing their own gardens. Employees found that even just planning a garden takes a lot more work then they expected. Some chose to create large-scale plans, some only had room for potted plants, but all were excited for the growing season to begin.
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Bring Your Lunch to Work in a Reusable Container for the Week
Its easy to just step outside the office and grab something quick for lunch, but this often leads to food waste and more garbage. Though it took extra time and preparation in the morning, employees enjoyed extra spending money, healthier fare and the knowledge that they were keeping packaging out of the landfill. |
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Compost Kitchen Scraps and Yard Waste at Home
Food waste needs oxygen to biodegrade in soil. In the confines of trash bags and in a landfill, foodwaste remains bulky and damaging to the environment. To eliminate household trash from ending up in landfills, this team composted all food scraps and yard waste for a week. With all the effort they put in to implement this important initiative, many employees plan to continue this practice.
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Use only Re-Usable Bags
According to statistics released by the EPA – between 500 billion to a trillion plastic bags are consumed worldwide each year. Of those, millions end up along highways, in our parks and on our beaches in addition to being buried in landfills. And asking for Paper is not always a better option, though paper bags are recyclable, they weigh more and use more energy to produce.
Employees in this group were challenged with only using reusable bags at every store they visited during the week. THis included grocery shopping, take-out food, the video store. Some opted to just not use a bag at all for small purchases and all noted that for big purchases, the reusable bags were actually easier to use – sturdier and could carry more weight, making fewer trips to the car.
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Don’t Throw Anything away that can be Recycled
Everybody knows the importance of recycling materials in order to keep them out of landfills. But knowledge doesn’t always equal action. Employees in this group took extra measures to ensure nothing recyclable ended up in a landfill. Whether that meant signing up for curb-side recycling or bringing recyclable material to work to be recycled, employees did not back down.
It is important to recycle, but you can’t recycle if you don’t purchase items that are recyclable. Employees learned that styrophoam, chip packages and packaging with mixed materials are unable to be recycled.
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Use only Re-usable Drink Containers
It is important to stay hydrated throughout the day, but that should not be at the expense of our environment. Employees in this group were challenged to drink from reusable containers. They learned that not all reusable containers are created equal. Plastic containers can be dangerous to reuse and glass containers are dangerous to use on the production floor. Some employees refilled soda cans, others purchased more permanent aluminum containers.
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Implement an Alternative Commute more than Usual
Long commutes in inefficient vehicles destroy our air quality and clog up our freeways. This GreenWeek, 3form employees learned that Salt Lake City has the 6th worst air quality in the nation, making this challenge even more important. Employees in this group were asked to use alternative transportation at least one more day than usual. Carpool with a co-worker, take the bus or train, or ride your bike to work. Some carpooled for the first time, some decided to ride their bike all week despite rain and all learned that alternative commutes can be pleasant, energizing and an efficient use of time. |
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Bike or Walk Somewhere you Would Ordinarily Drive
Employees in this group took advantage of community bike and pedestrian paths and walked to a relatives house or rode their bike to the grocery store. The entire group enjoyed the outdoor activity, a connection to their community and extra time with their families. |
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Hang Dry your Clothes
This group avoided extra energy expenditure by hanging their laundry instead of running the dryer. They shared tips on keeping clothes soft, speeding the drying process and finding room in small quarters for dryer-lines. |
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Do a Home Energy Audit
Increase the energy efficiency of your home, save money on utilities and feel more comfortable in extreme weather. This group found that making small adjustments in their homes could go along way in improving the over-all efficiency of their energy expenditures.
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Custom Challenges
From researching natural gas conversion for engines, to changing all lights to energy efficient flurescent bulbls. From developing a plan to recycle all cardboard waste to planting 20 new trees in and around their property – 3form employees found unique ways to challenge their environmental commitments. |
