After what felt like a never ending winter, we are finally celebrating spring in northern Nevada! Every April, WETLAB takes time to celebrate Earth Day and the environment, which is an important part of our mission and culture. Over a year and a half ago, we launched our Environmental Club as an additional way to make an impact and prioritize taking care of our environment throughout the year. Our club is a fully employee driven and created club, so that we could try and find ways we can make the world a better and greener place, starting right here at WETLAB and in our own lives.
With the creation of this club, we intended to:
One of our most impactful initiatives has been promoting recycling, both at the office and in our personal lives. We have been able to reduce waste by converting garbage to recycling and worked to educate ourselves and co-workers about the guidelines, so as not to contaminate our recycling. Part of this initiative was developing a program that worked for our company. We ultimately added recycling stations and worked with Waste Management to provide a single stream recycling dumpster, which they pick up from our office, making it easier for us to recycle.
As we worked to identify other ways to make an impact, we made the decision to retrofit the entire building with LED lights, eliminating our older energy inefficient lights altogether. This was a big project for us, with big rewards, as it helps us reduce energy consumption, our environmental impact, and our energy bill.
We have worked together to make great progress on a plant wall, located in our lobby, picking up plants to use, installing a drip system for watering and creating a log to maintain regular care for the plants. Our wall is not only a wonderful and green addition to our work space, but living walls can help reduce pollution by purifying the air and releasing oxygen. They can also reduce noise levels by reflecting, refracting and absorbing acoustic energy. Did you know that living walls are known to boost office productivity?
Our Environmental Club has not only helped to make a larger impact on our environment, but has also improved relationships and connections among our team by encouraging fun, nature filled activities together. We attended a camping trip at Grasshopper Flat Campground in Lake Davis and enjoyed some hiking, led by Nick and Robert W. We had fun making desk gardens in November, which we dedicated to our friend Cassie in honor of her love of art and artistic ability.
As we reflect on another Earth Day and the intentions of our company and the Environmental Club, we look forward to continuing to find ways to make a difference. Some of the projects we are most excited about are:
We welcome ideas, collaborations and participation in our club activities and believe that together, we can make a difference!