Did you know that at Christmas Australians generate 50% more waste, and in the UK over 114,00 tonnes of plastic (equivalent to the weight of 650,000 reindeers) goes into landfill?
At CGI we are aware of our impact on the environment, so last year we encouraged our team to participate in a ‘No Plastic Chrimbo-tastic’ competition to help share ideas on eco-friendly Christmas creations.
Winning entries included a homemade Christmas tree made of recycled wood, repurposing old colouring-in pencils and turning them into drink coasters, a homemade Kahlua and a Christmas wreath made from Australian succulents.
As part of the competition, our Australian members generated a donation from CGI of approximately $500 for the Seabin Project (Seabin), a project close to our heart as we are actively promoting the reduction of waste within the wider community.
Seabin’s mission
Seabin provides practical and tangible solutions for removing plastic waste from water. We have rubbish bins on land, so why not have them in the water? The City of Sydney was Seabin's pilot, and their tech team worked 24/7 to remove marine debris and surface pollutants.
Interestingly, they also tracked parking ticket litter around Sydney and found that on average, tickets spent 48 days in the environment before being picked up!
16 Seabin units were deployed in 8 Sydney Harbour locations during the pilot, which collected over 16,500 kgs of microplastics, marine litter, and plastic by filtering 3.2 billion litres of water. An amazing result!
What Responsible Business looks like at CGI
We recently rebranded our Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) function to ‘Responsible Business’ as 'CSR' doesn't encompass all we're trying to achieve. We believe Responsible Business captures the wide range of initiatives and activities our team is delivering to create a more inclusive and sustainable world focused on three key pillars of 'climate', 'people' and 'communities'.
Responsible Business is at the heart of our values and business model and has been designed to create clear alignment and commitment within our community of members, clients and shareholders.
Investing in community
I'm a firm believer in investing in the community and am passionate about CGI’s philosophy of helping people and using whatever skills we have at our disposal – that is one of the reasons I love working here. We strive to do more at every level of our business, and I'm proud to be a part of that.
There's nothing nicer than knowing you've made someone's life easier, or contributed to a healthier planet for us all! Watch this video to see the Seabin Project in action, and for career opportunities at CGI, please keep an eye on our careers page.
