Greening our Operations

While our environmental impact is not part of our mission, as responsible professionals we do need to look at the impact of our operations on the environment.

Here are a few of the things we do that help to decrease our footprint:

• Our volunteers each donate an estimated 100 hours per project. Of these 100 hours of work, 90% are virtual, requiring no travel.
• Many of our Roots (staff) work from home one day per week, decreasing the amount of gas they consume as commuters. We also encourage folks to bike to work.
• We use online applications for volunteers and nonprofits and in so doing reduce paper use and minimize shipping (mail).Our primary marketing tool is our web site, rather than paper-based materials.

In the next few years, we want to further reduce our use of natural resources by pursuing these strategies:

We currently use way too much paper in our volunteer projects, starting with our 80 page manuals that volunteers and nonprofits use to guide projects. We are moving to make all of these virtual.We require nonprofits to come and interview with us in person. We want to determine how to make these meetings virtual.We continue to produce brochures and annual reports for nonprofits (and for ourselves). As we become more of a “paperless” society, we will convert these projects into online versions that will not require paper and shipping.

Do you have other ideas for ways that the Taproot Foundation can develop more responsible environmental policies? we want to hear from you.