 Thanks a lot. Yeah, so we can start right Yeah, thanks for coming and paying your attention to our topic today Quickly introducing us. Maybe not in so official manner. So this is Anna This is Leo. We are working at Kreuzwerker. Kreuzwerker is a German company and We are mainly in the IT consulting business We do have cloud consulting Atlassian consulting. We are helping people to get along with Jaira we are helping people helping companies to get up into the cloud and Run it successfully and we have a part of the business is also a gel transformation organizational transformation where I'm doing consulting so the company is Quite big at the moment. So we get we had a quite a big growth During the pandemic time. We went from around 90 people to 180 so quite a huge growth and right now three offices in Germany and Berlin and Munich and in Frankfurt and we have subsidiaries in Poland and in Switzerland and 180 employees not everybody is right now on the sustainability path, but we are trying to Yeah promote the topic and both of us. We are co-ordinators for this topic in the company Yeah, so and today We just wanted to show you how we what we did actually What how was our job done through the pandemic time and in the last year because we did a couple of actions? And we tried to bring people on board with sustainability topic Time-wise we quickly go through our presentation and hopefully then we have a discussion and Questions and just chat How is the plan good? Good, then let's go. Yeah, so acting on climate protection and sustainability as a show socially Responsible IT company from at least we think we are socially responsible. Yes. We are a bit. Yeah So a responsible IT company from Kreuzberg it's and it's all started in 2020 So a while ago Over to Anna. Yes. I'm here. So the Kroiswecker was founded actually in 2014 and many Sustainability was always part of Kroiswecker's period and actions, but until 2020 It was not part of our company values when we onboard sustainability in our company values But in 2020 even then it was not very clear what that actually meant The sustainability topic is Was owned at the moment and is still owned by our culture club. The culture club is a company board conformed by employees who volunteer to promote and improve our values our ethics our Corporate responsibility our work environment our work life balance, etc They have many topics on the table and There were many sustainability actions from the beginning like I said we have for instance Be your fair trade coffee available in our offices we have access to a company bike We have a water filter so that we don't have to buy bottled water, etc And even we have a real vegetarian lunch served every day in our Berlin office where most of our employees are based and The food is provided by the Berkischer Kiste. They provide local real food to our office. Everything else is Bought in the or provided from the real company So to say to maintain a sustainability quality to the food we eat in the company, but As I said, these were individual actions taken no direction No goal no measurement so There was no not an ultimate goal and as I said that this is the impact or the success of the of the initiative was not measured or Yeah, plant in any way. So there was no understandings of our strengths of our resources and Nobody knew actually what was the motivation behind it I mean as I said, it was always part of the course backers period that people were aware of these actions But nothing else was said So there was a lack of acceptance for the topic so to say Company-wide, I mean that the the culture club was taking care of it and that was it So in March 2020 We had the opportunity to embark in a one-year project with two students from the Masters Program Quality and Sustainability Management from the Hochschule Verschaftsundrecht in Berlin and they worked with course backer for a complete year Just before the pandemic broke out the project was done half on site half remotely And they run some workshops. They did some interviews They looked at our current status quo and they were able sort of say to Start to measure what the impact was from our sustainability actions They mapped our actions towards this the sustainable development goals say hey This is what you're doing. This is in direction where you should be going. They plan some more goals for us and some sort of a strategy But after a year, however Nobody knew very well what to do with all this information This topic became huge for the culture club who had already so many things on their table and Then the pandemic broke out and this didn't seem Again, not a very important topic for anyone at the company at the time Again, then also all these measures are Centred in our office and for more than a year all our colleagues have been working remotely everywhere so there was a Sort of complexity added to a topic from that side so The culture club studied looking for our for a sustainability Ordinators someone who would take over the topic of sustainability who could promote it within the company who could drive it for for work maybe on board some interested colleagues also and The sustainability Initiative was only going to be successful as a long-term project This is not something that you can do in a year in two years It has to become part of your company or your association, whatever. No So There was some as I said some complexity within this topic Pandemic remote workers so the sustainability coordinator had to have not only passion for the topic Organizational talent PM scales as you can see here willing to pick up people But also a certain tolerance for frustration to be honest So all the applicants this was an internal call we were not hiring It had to be someone who knew the coils back up Internally so the culture club would interview everyone who submitted their applications and then will decide okay Who will become our sustainability coordinator? Next slide please, but things were not that easy Only two people Applied for the sustainability coordinator position and yes, you got that right. It was Leo and myself Not many people felt that they had the time to take over this responsibility or this complex topic. So There were also many things to think about right as a consultancy company many Deep complex questions arise with the topic of sustainability, right? If we want to do it seriously and honestly are we willing to renounce financially or to do less Interesting technical stuff to support the right customers if we take it seriously Sustainability would also have influence in our customer portfolio and our partnerships, of course as well Are we willing to? Accept lesser earnings as a company and invest part of our budget to certain initiatives to set the projects that we all agree on and well Leo and I decided to devise some sort of a survey where we can Measure the interest of our colleagues in just what an interest in the sustainability topic so we asked this and some other questions that people had really to consider and think about and Out of 90 or 100 employees that we were at the moment only 19 responded so This showed to us that there was a lack of interest that there was a certain indifference for the topic at the moment well It was kind of a fiasco Next yeah, so So far our experience was not a great one. We had Some actions but no clear understanding of where we were going some Supporters but no ownership actually of the full sustainability initiatives and we have spent one year in a project with With our students of the master's program that to our understanding failed to catch our essence and like the Kreuzwerker personality It was not our own and The words of our big box biggest sponsor in the company where I could have googled it on my own So yeah, not a very good Feedback we were very at a loss as to what was coming First but we were not anywhere close to give up This is the lesson that we've learned first. We need our own initiative We need to understand what sustainability means at Kreuzwerker for our colleagues for the employees and how do we translate that? Interaction, how what do we do as consultants? What is our business? How is it that we can implement this? in our context So yes Leo and I became sustainability coordinators we formed a team In my case, I am not Formed formally in the sustainability Area I am more or less sustainability Enthusiasts so to say Rather recently one could say when my daughter was born eight years ago. It became apparent to me that Future generations rely on us for survival quite literally. This is not a figure of speech so If it as I said it became apparent to me and I thought okay, we need to change How do we change? We need to change ourselves if we want to see change in other places If we want to reflect that change you need to start from within so what called the code for the sustainability Coordinated of position I thought This is my call. This is a place where I love to work. I love my colleagues We do great work together and this is my opportunity to do as It was mentioned before my main role is information security Risk manager So this is my opportunity to do meaningful Work so I accepted the call and I became together with Leo Sustainability coordinator So my motivation is a little bit less emotional But still there so as organizational consultants organizational development consultant I do a lot of work with changes So for example cloud transformation is coming as a change to the company or agility is approaching the company how how the companies are dealing with this and With the sustainability. I saw actually immediately the same pattern. Yes, so this is changed for complete company Yeah, so and I thought okay with this methods which I have at hand as agile coach. I can completely help this initiative To strive I hoped I can so anyway, I used all those methods in my work and And maybe just additionally I'm also like I really love surfing and do it a lot and sometimes water is not good so For me was like everything what we do sustainability. Maybe in some way will influence the quality of the water ramp where I'm surfing It's a long way, but yeah Still valuable to go anyway so we formed the team and our first assignment was somehow to understand in which direction we want to go as a company so we had a lot of actions action actions, but no general direction and Exactly one of the things what I'm doing in the company is is basically a vision consulting vision workshops And in this case I did it just in and my company were organized the series of workshops on the vision Sustainability vision so we went to a nice place in Berlin very inspiring and We had quite a good group of Representative and motivated people this probably the key to success here to get to get them in one room and to make them thinking and have fun and we had like Important stakeholders who are basically who are sponsoring resources in this time in this in our case. It's money and time right so Inspiring place. Yes. I'll show it later and we had quite a lot of challenges to To work on so those a lot of buzzwords around sustainability. Yeah, so this all huge SDGs which are rather for Rather for states less than for organizations and We had like no tooling inside of this Initiative so we had no vision no mission no strategy no principles We had to go through them figure them out and as Anna previously said it was in the middle of corona so they're in the middle of pandemic and It didn't seem the most important thing to do So we also like we're really we do it now or we will wait until it's gone But I said no no no it will go on. It's one of our values values needs to be lived and filled with life So let's let's move on to the vision And yeah, exactly inspiring place. This is really like nice place in Berlin called Spray a car on spray failed It's a co-op building for people who are Yes, so they build it together with let's say Quite a few Resources available. So these are like creative people was Sometimes less and income and maybe no no savings and They created basically affordable living super green. They use all the areas around. It's also in Kreuzberg on the riverside and Close to it is located pre-accus pre-accus is for people who has no home so they can do some a little gardening also in the middle of the city and For us we picked this up because it like it was super nicely well done project Where many people definitely had one vision and they somehow came to one solution and it was really a complex thing to build three big big houses with many many flats and possibilities to garden So it looked for us complex enough and Somehow vision fulfilled. So we said, okay, cool. We inspire us here and then we'll also come up with the vision So then basically during the workshop, we had couple of deep questions where people said, oh Come on. This is too hard too hard to answer. I'm I'm tired. I don't know. I need a break So they really said it was not easy to answer one of them. Well was Why is sustainability why we work together on sustainability initiative without any financial gain and in front of us So the question of beliefs. Yeah, so how hard we believe in this. So we are ready to invest up front What are our core beliefs? Why sustainability matters to you in organizational context? It was important because everybody is coming with kind of enthusiasm and sometimes enthusiasm means had Ecocafe or biocafe or I don't know food from biomarked But how to frame it in the organizational context how to get this because we are consultants We are kind of we have fast-learning people So we need to gain basically the strengths of our main business into the sustainability Inside to it So this was the question What our biggest internal resources to realize our beliefs? What difference will we introduce in our lives and lives of our partners through the sustainability initiative and partners in the broader sense We also are touching families. So we kind of want to Influence not only our business partners, but generally surrounding around us And What can be unique to Kreuzwerker in sustainability? So we had basically this huge list of actions from the previous project But we had no uniqueness in it and many companies are producing kind of sustainability visions for example IKEA is a good example of company who really have really well thought sustainability program with vision and mission and yearly strategies and But they do have it unique. So they really framed it in their own world Alright, so and we came up with the vision. So this is the picture of the future for us And future is not so far. So we said a vision is okay for three years and then we will rethink Whether this vision is kind of coming to life or we need to change it a little bit So sustainability as a comprehensive part of Kreuzwerker's professional and private acting So not only professional but also private private Starting from within and with ourselves by supporting our employees and our local community So we definitely stay in Kreuzberg and we would like to influence Kreuzberg sustainability locally We want to act as enablers multipliers and inspiration to encourage business. So we do Not only believe that we can change ourselves. We also believe that we can also influence the others our partners And hopefully we are inspiration in some point of time. So we are for business and and communities to become more sustainable Yeah, so we are not only kind of focused on our partners business partners But really looking in a broader sense in our local environment There are principles connected because one just one sentence is not enough to explain what we want to do There is like more explanation needed So principles we can have a bigger impact Sustainability is in the center of our business and culture. So we want to go into the products So our IT products or our IT services will become more and more sustainable and have the part of sustainability in them Sustainability is a long-term perspective that unites. So 180 people they need to be kind of brought together Some are older some are younger some are techies some are Finances and we would like this the sustainability is like a red line for the whole company Yeah, and our location is our identity. So from Kreuzberg with 35 Intern so nationalities in the company. We would like to act locally, but also profit from our Internationality. Yeah, so get some inspiration there as well Right So we set vision three years and we have yearly strategy and This is the first year with sustainability strategy and We said okay cool to get people on board it would be good to start with food So we started basically to Yeah, to eat sustainably and to have some Events connected to the food sustainability, right? That's the easiest. So now the topic is over The next one is harder That we are sustainable in home office Because many many people are in the home office. They're just occasionally coming to the company for one or two days But mainly the rest of five days are staying at home. So water consumption Electricity waste etc We all need to be there better Then we want that every Kreuzberg has an understanding of sustainability as we said the beginning was with how many people? 19 interested people so we are 180 we really clearly can Have it as a key performance indicator. Maybe next year there will be 20 interested. I don't know Hopefully 180 Yeah, so basically yeah, we formulated some steps and a seed as sustainability strategy for this year and next year We will re-discuss next year. There will be a next strategy Okay That's good. Yeah, and basically how we are doing this year What are we what are our actions to enable the strategy or to are not? Thank you okay, so as we said our Strategy for this year is to build an active sustainability community within Kreuzberg We want to onboard our colleagues those who have the energy those who have the potential to come on board sustainability strategy and help us Thrive move it forward. So some of the actions that we are taking our internal events. We write some Regularly blog posts. We do a couple of sustainability lunches already. These are topic Lances where we bring a topic. We bring some information. We bring a speaker a colleague Who wants to talk about how they? Live sustainably in a portion of their lives, of course, none of us is doing it perfectly We can all get better. We can share information. We can discuss Great thing about the sustainability lunches our experience is that The conversation happens quite naturally. We are all colleagues sitting at the lunch table sharing some food Talking discussing Agreeing disagreeing finding a common compromise. That was very nice. We had colleagues who talked about They're being vegan while they are doing it how it impacts their lives. We have colleagues who talked about from being part of a Zero waste community zero waste community exactly explaining us what that means how they do it The principles of the zero waste community. We had colleagues explain the house about being part of a social Socialist a lander shaft the social farming project what it means for them and their family How do you become part of a social farming project? And how do they work in Berlin in Brandenburg where we are located and We also had a colleague who lives in a boat and she has not so many Space to store so she has to really plan what she's going to consume consuming not generating waste She also doesn't have a lot of energy available. She has to take care of that as well We brought together with Leo some Bugs for people to Sort of challenge provoke see what what the reaction was For the lunch back for the lunch, yeah But anyway this a lunch format it worked really well of course back up I I must say We have of course sometimes we Like Leo said many people work remote. We have five locations. We want everyone on board So we do also virtual meetings where we have Maybe the format is not as fun as a lunch But still we need that as well having five different locations We have open Friday presentations at we we have this knowledge Sharing format across vodka what we do once Recorder and open Friday and we offer sessions and all our colleagues consultants Talk about technical topics organizational topics self-development topics Whatever it is that they want to present For everyone to share their knowledge exactly So sometimes we also have used this format to discuss to brainstorm to get people on board to to to listen to their opinions How we are doing what do we need whether we need to get better, etc We do movie nights. We watch some documentaries spark some discussions This is also very fun at our office in Koetswarka And and also something that is calling our colleagues to come to come together to look at the topics that we are presenting and hopefully discuss afterwards and Last but not least we are also part of our company wide all hands Which means in our company wide all hands this happens also once every quarter And this is mainly where our CEOs and business line leaders talk about the business strategy And we thought the sustainability strategy must be equal and must have the same importance that in the same hierarchy So we also took over so to say or were offered a spot in the In the old hands and we talk about What is it that we're doing? Where are we in our in our past towards our vision and this way also those employees that might not be as involved Have also the opportunity to listen to what is it that is being done? Maybe they catch some something interesting or at least See if there is a presence for this sustainability initiative at Koetswarka So, okay. Yes, I will take home a message for today or what we would like to share with you is our learnings what have we learned in the last two years and Some of these learnings had to do with the time it took for us to come up with what we needed to do it's worthy to invest the time and Find your own Understanding definition of sustainability what it means in your context whether it is the university a company an Association or your family Sustainability is a complex thing and it has many many ways in Which we can view sustainability and everyone has a different understanding so coming Together and discussing and learning from each other and forming a community was for us a key development In our case also making our future statement clear so that everyone understands What is that we want to achieve in which direction we want to go and for this? No external people could help us at Koetswarka do this We had to do it on our own and Let us last but not least get people on board it get people engaged discuss again Talk to each other and try to understand different points of view because the more we are not only the merrier Also the stronger and the more rich it gets because it's it gets diverse We all have different points of view and we all can Give something different to the topic so this were our learnings in these two years and now also we are looking for something because we Also want to get bigger we want our sustainability initiative to get bigger We do it we not only want to stay within Koetswarka at Koetswark We also identified in these workshops that they have told you about some estuages towards which we could work Together with our colleagues. We sat down. We look at the sustainable development goals and we said okay These are the three sustainability Sustainable development goals in which we are more the most interested so to say and now we need to translate them into what it means For a company for my tea company in Berlin Koetswark in 2022 so The first SDG we identified as sustainable cities and communities in this sense. We would want to reflect on our role as a Company in Koetswark in Koetswark 20 hour Probably and what is Our role in our community and in our neighborhood and how can we positively influence that? By taking actions. So for this We are seeking for guidance. We are seeking for partnerships associations NGOs. Maybe maybe groups of Companies or communities who are already doing something in this sense or maybe public Initiatives that we could join as Leo said we are consultants our superpower is our brains We can learn stuff. We can bring our knowledge to others who need it So the second one we have identified as quality education Again being a social actor in an urban area. We face inequalities every day. We see it At our door and we would like to reflect on our role. How do we support the right? for education In our community, but not only Everywhere in the world actually So for this also, we are looking for Partnerships that will allow us to bring our knowledge to those who maybe didn't have the opportunity to access education and how we can help form new professionals in our Area There is a lot of demand. We need more people. We are constantly hiring and this is also something that will fit our own pipeline So, you know, it's a good way also to look at it and it's the truth and Last but not least of course climate action the case for climate action is clear And we at course back I understand that by taking climate action. We also forge We can forge sustainable business and on top of that sustainable communities So here again, we are looking for the opportunity to Have To to volunteer our colleagues We also have measured this and in many calls and in many discussions It came up that our consultants are willing to volunteer their time or cross-back as time To To help yes, maybe ecological projects Public initiatives or other companies who are taking climate action. So this is what we are looking for right now Exactly partnerships so that we can become a stronger in this topic alright, so if you have some ideas and Proposals how to partner with us come over Otherwise, do we have time for questions? Right and any questions you welcome Okay Thank you for your presentation. It was very informative I was I had a few questions, but I'll try to combine them a little bit How was the support from management for this role? And this is role something that you do as a volunteer or is this your paid job That's basically my first question and the second one is Has this Started a conversation in your company on how to Use your sustainable goals that you're working on internally also for your clients Yes, so one of the client is I either and of course this is like for us Example, you know, do we work with Aida or we don't work with Aida? It's of course the question and Ida company Basically big polluters super big polluters. Yeah, but then and we are like super close partners with them and This is like of course the question here and do we lose money for sustainable clients? So and if how we will How we'll go this way and big question but generally we do have a great sponsor. This is CEO of our company He's a great sport sponsor. So we had from the beginning on a good start He has strong ideas about sustainability and that why sustainability is a part of company value But it's not enough right so we need everybody on board Yeah, I would press on the first question little more Did you see changes in what you did for the companies or which companies you worked with? So for us, maybe the first year was the year to educate ourselves Yeah, so we saw it's just only really 20 people interested so there is no point to go father to kind of Missioner for for for other companies you if they are not have a strong core inside So we said first we educate ourselves and then we go for products sustainable products And then we will see what's their response on the market. It's probably the next year. We are going we are trying Start with this right? anymore This is two minutes. My sense is finished. Oh, but You're free to have another question. Otherwise, I would give an announcement. What's going on outside. Thank you so much Thank you. Thank you. And Feel free to contact Quartzwacker because there seems a very interesting nice people there as our Hopefully good luck for you For you, it's maybe interesting. There is lovely food outside. It's a Maroc Chickpea curry with bread. So there's lots of it. Please join the kitchen and take some food and Additionally, some of you might have free space in between some sections some lectures We're still looking for angels. So angels are helping hands Through the bits and boimers so you can give a hand in the kitchen By cutting things or by cleaning dishes. You can also else well be helping in the Info section and so on if you like to do something for the rest of the day except of Watching and hearing the good talks we have just go to the info point They will be very lucky and very happy to see you being an angel for bits and boimers and last but not least We do have bits and boimers journal, which is the publication at the end of the bits and boimers. There is a call for participation Until the 16th of October. There's a form you can fill in and if you have interesting Things that might be well done in this journal, which will be published and have will have for sure a good resonance So thank you so much