launchlabs & sustainability: Our vision & efforts to create a greener (working) world.

“How ‘green’, i.e. how sustainable, are you actually?”, we are regularly asked. Pretty much! Not just in our logo, and not just because we’ve decked out our Berlin headquarters with lots of plants and green color accents and named it the “greenhouse”. What else and how?

To get it straight: launchlabs was founded with the idea of helping our customers develop valuable innovations. To create a sustainable future, time and time again. In addition, we have focused on “glocalization” from the very beginning: to be effective globally and act locally to do so. This is also true when it comes to sustainability. An overview:

We buy as much as possible from local and sustainable producers and suppliers. This applies to office supplies as well as food: there is always a large vegan, vegetarian and organic selection at our events as well as in our own refrigerator and coffee bar. By the way, we have reduced our range of glass and plastic beverages to a minimum. Small but sweet gesture: we bring our own Tupperware when we order our lunch locally.

We’re also into recycling and upcycling: whenever possible, we buy equipment that has already had a first-time user, and of course we separate our waste. Anyway, we work almost paperless in the office. As soon as we are in the office again more often and with more people, there will be a worm bin for our biological waste. Whatever other food is left over goes home with colleagues, is frozen or – if allowed – given to the food bank.

Our own agile furniture line, What if we fly, is made from responsibly grown wood and is even officially vegan. At the same time, we reduce resource consumption because we switched from paper post-its to magnetic so-called ‘magnotes’. So, since we ship worldwide, there’s nothing stopping our customers from making their agile spaces just as sustainable.

Every year, we donate to charity, making our spaces and knowledge available to charitable initiatives. Don’t be surprised if you run into a launchlabs team member at a soup kitchen, an energy hackathon, or co-hosting sustainability events!

In the spirit of social sustainability, our colleagues come first: We offer a spacious, inspiring workspace, a constructive, safe work environment, the freedom to pursue your own issues and interests, enough time and opportunities outside of work to stay inspired, healthy and rested. In addition to corporate cultural “fit”, we look for diversity in job offers. The launchlabs guarantee financial transparency and equal salary per level for each gender.

We do not want to ‘greenwash’ at this point: There are still some construction sites at our company, too. For example, our office building, an old industrial courtyard dating back to 1903, is not very well insulated; we want to work on this as best we can over the next few years. But we have already made a start on energy efficiency: LED lights are already everywhere, a light and heating check is carried out at the end of each office day, and we only use green electricity. When it comes to travel – and this is likely to become a hot topic again soon – we are looking for the golden mean: How can we keep our CO2 emissions as low as possible while allowing our facilitator team to perform at their best?

In the coming years, we will focus even more on green innovation – and the work ethic and mindset required to achieve it – accompanying projects where sustainability is the biggest design criterion. Because many companies are currently primarily concerned with the quantifiable and technical side of climate change, the human factor is often forgotten – though it’s people that drive change. In this respect, we see the important task for us and our clients to look at the topic of sustainability holistically from a human-centered and, above all, planet-centered design perspective.

We are curious about your initiatives and tips in the area of sustainability and would like to support you in clearing the way for greener processes, products and services in your organizations!

published: 16th of June 2021