Euromonitor’s staff are keen to engage with the sustainability agenda so this year’s recent Green Week had “Plastic-Free Euromonitor” as its theme. We concentrated on reducing our “plastics footprint” in our 15 offices worldwide. Local teams aimed to use less plastic as well as looking at what we use in the company’s offices and kitchens. We showed that whilst we recycle, much of that plastic cannot be used again and ends up in a landfill. This campaign also related to our support of Ocean Cleanup and its ambition to take plastics out of the oceans.
From headquarters in London, we sent out a list of plastics to eliminate from the office including single-use plastic bottles (brought in by staff too), cups, cutlery, stirrers, straws, etc. In their place, we made sure all offices had glasses and metal cutlery, encouraged staff to bring in reusable containers for their lunch and provided reusable water and beverage containers.
Six offices carried out litter-picking exercises. Singapore and Hong Kong went out to local beaches with as many as three-quarters of the office participating. Our São Paulo office teamed up with a local CSR partner –a club for elderly people – and picked 20 bags of litter off the local streets where garbage disposal is a major problem. Our Vilnius team set off in canoes to take the rubbish out of their local river and Dusseldorf staff trawled their riverbank. Bangalore cleaned up a local forest reserve.
Other offices organised talks from local environment groups, had plastic-free eco-lunches and showed videos such as ‘A Plastic Ocean’. All reported an improved awareness and understanding of the indestructible and damaging nature of plastics.
Our research teams identified that ‘I want a plastic-free world’ had become a top global consumer trend. They also produced a “Sustainability 360” look at our Passport research systems including Packaging, Natural Resources, Ethical Labels and our Lifestyle survey to show how they can come together to support clients with this issue.
We will continue to develop our plastic-free and eco policy to work towards our plastic-free goals.
