Sustainability is at the core of everything we do, our values, and vision. Indeed, we are on a mission to build a livable 22nd century. Why are we called 22d? Because our aim is to bring and support our customers to the 22nd century, whatever that may look like. And to do so, we need to make sure that this future is sustainable, hence our long term focus. The long term goal of Dominik Kugelmann, 22d’s co-founder and Chief of Vision, is for 22d to be self-owned. Why? To let 22d live for itself and be represented by all its stakeholders, namely its employees and customers. Dominik’s aim is to give employees the freedom to experiment and be intrapreneurs, expanding 22d’s impact in directions it would not have otherwise considered. Our vision is driven by our values, which are curiosity, openness, and adaptability. And they drive our sustainability strategy.
Our sustainability strategy
We at 22d take sustainability seriously and we have a holistic approach to it, where we aim to care for people and the planet according to the three pillars of sustainability: environment, economy/governance, and social. Our sustainability commitments are organised around what we call an internal-external impact nexus. This means that our internal commitments and our values on a company level, guide our external relationships with customers, providers, and the communities we engage with.
Environment
On the environmental side, we are always looking for ways to improve ourselves and learn. Currently, 22d is on its journey to carbon neutrality, according to our emissions calculated and offsetted thanks to the amazing Consequence tool. What does it mean? Companies, processes and products become carbon neutral when they calculate their carbon emissions and compensate for what they have produced via carbon offsetting projects. How did we get there? Sustainability is at the core of 22d’s vision and values. Our name, 22d, stands for the 22nd century: we want to help build a liveable 22nd century for our customers, communities, and overall all our stakeholders. So becoming carbon neutral was an aim we set ourselves. To achieve it, we worked with the amazing team at Consequence. How does Consequence work? Consequence calculates your carbon emissions by using your company’s transactions. The reasoning behind this is that transactions provide a blueprint of everything a business has done that has a carbon impact, and Consequence uses this to calculate the companies’ carbon footprint. Each transaction represents an activity and a decision your organisation has taken, from travel to investing in IT infrastructure. Each transaction also represents a payment a company has made to a supplier or service provider. Consequence identifies each supplier and calculates the carbon footprint using environmental data they have gathered on that entity. Using transactions also means companies get a thorough coverage of their business activities and analyse the carbon footprint of each. Is carbon neutral enough? The short answer is: No. The slightly longer answer: It’s a good start, but being neutral is just one part of our sustainability strategy, and is not enough.
What else are we doing, then? We have joined the Leaders for Climate Action network, which is a community of entrepreneurs and executives who make a pledge, both on a personal and company level to step up for climate action. But that's the internal level of our environmental commitments. On the external end, we pre screen our customers to make sure we don’t engage with companies that don’t match our values, and when possible we add contractually binding sustainability commitments when we start a relationship with a partner company or service provider, and we also encourage them to join the Leaders for Climate Action Network.
Governance
On the governance side, we see transparency as a core element of our functioning as an organisation. All employees work openly, with content shared to all others, and for this we inspire ourselves from Gitlab. On the external side, when working with customers, they also have access to our work in real time, rather than the end product.
Social
On the social side, we aim to build a team of diverse individuals, and to make sure that our employees and customers feel safe, included, and welcome. We are also advocates for a more diverse and inclusive IT industry, and currently trying to collaborate with others on that.
Collaborate with us
Overall, the reason why the internal-external impact nexus is key to us, is because if our internal commitments are important, it is in our external relationships that we have the most impact, with our customers, providers, and communities. So this is us, and we are very open to learn, fail, and collaborate on sustainability matters, so if you are visiting this website and want to discuss and collaborate with us, contact us, because we are so much more powerful when we join efforts!
