Movie Love-in
September 24, 2010 : General Team Building
Maximillion is a small event management company with just a team of nine but I like to think we punch above our weight when it comes to managing down our carbon footprint. Our first “Green Queen” was Nikki and she came up with most of the initiatives to get us started in 2007. Since then, we have enjoyed a steady momentum and are on track to reduce our carbon from 27 tons in 2007 to 13 tons in 2010, that’s a reduction of over 50%!
Despite this success, one of the things I’ve struggled with is how to spread the passion amongst the team, how to bring them on board and be enthusiastic carbon collaborators. Measuring everything we do to manage our carbon down is a time wasting inconvenience to some and requires them to have two sets of behaviours, one for home and one for work. The challenge is how to make everyone willing accomplices with a single set of behaviours where their sustainable actions at work are replicated at home.
One initiative Sarah (Director of Ops) came up with was a Movie Night. Every couple of months, after work we get some pizza and beer and watch a film. We have bought a library of titles that all have a climate change or sustainability theme and the team choose which one to watch next. So far we have watched The Eleventh Hour, Earth, An Inconvenient Truth, The Vanishing Bees and of course The Age of Stupid.
Our movie nights have helped the team relate to the big issues of climate change and how the consequences are impacting on us now, and will effect our children and our grandchildren in the future. We realise that our contribution to the global battle against climate change is miniscule but our movies nights have reassured us that it is not insignificant. In The Eleventh Hour, Gloria Flora, Director Sustainable Obtainable Solutions eloquently suggests ‘Anyone of any age can vote, not by going into a voting booth, but by the decisions they make. Every day you lay money down on the counter you are saying “I approve of this object, the materials it’s made of and where it comes from”‘. The choices we make as a consumer will ultimately influence the policy of government, so collectively our behaviour stimulates political change.
Next up for October? We’re going for a fish theme so either “End of the Line” or “The Cove”. Recommendations welcome and if you’re in Edinburgh and want to come along, you’d be more than welcome!
This article was written for 1010global.