For us sustainability revolves around long term responsive partnerships where we are able to help our partners and community achieve what their consumers want through our intelligent design practice. If our partners deliver to consumers who demand environmentally responsible products, then Origin will supply well thought through recommendations on environmentally responsible products. If our partnerships require highly ethical social practices then Origin is keen to make overt how we take responsibility for our society.

Sustainability for us also involves creating a working environment for our employees that answers to their deeper need to make a difference. So our contributions to making the world a better place by the way we do business is genuinely felt with a good number of our employees actively involved in driving our internal practices.

Affiliations

We a member of the New Zealand Business Council for Sustainable Development. We are also working on becoming carbon neutral through LandCare NZ.

We are building an association with a UK design company, Salter Baxter, who lead the design field in the UK for Corporate Responsibility reporting.

Office procedures

• Reuse and recycle. We have improved our recycling processes by outlining specific recycling steps and introducing more recycling bins and information about recycling.
• Reducing our landfill waste to a minimum. We have replaced general rubbish bins with more recycling bins and introduced a bin for all organic material, which is then turned into compost.
• Electricity – our energy supplier uses 100% renewable energy. We turn off office lights when they are not in use.
• We recycle printer cartridges and use recycled paper for our printer.
• Presentations and meetings. We prefer not to present our designs on mounting boards in order to reduce waste. We voice and video conference wherever possible.

Travel

• We have bought bus passes for everyone who chooses to bus to meetings. We attempt to walk whenever time allows. Our taxi company has been advised that, where possible, our taxis are to be LPG fuelled cars.

Shopping

• We buy Fair Trade coffee only
• Our cleaners use our sustainable/biodegradable cleaning products
• Our groceries are delivered in boxes instead of plastic bags
• We choose not to purchase products in containers which are not recyclable

Printing

• This is a huge area and we have full details on this should you want to talk to us.

Social

• We do pro-bono work for: Life Flight New Zealand, the SPCA and the NZ Drug Foundation.
• We contribute ad-hoc to over 20 charities a year
• Our working environment is comfortable with fresh air and natural light. We have a very well provisioned food and drink cupboard for all employees. We are as flexible as good business allows in terms of working conditions to suit individual needs.
• Health and disability insurance is paid for each employee
• Each employee gets their birthday gifted to them as a day off and four additional days of statutory leave are gifted to each employee annually (one for pre-Christmas shopping, and three between Christmas and New Year)
• We provide, on request, workstation audits with a registered company who specialises in this area. Our last audit report indicated that we were above average in our workplace practices.