Green Office project

In the current context of the pandemic and the significant economic losses incurred by Ukrainian businesses, the introduction of the Green Office (GO) concept – an eco-conscious corporate culture and resource-efficient office organization (even with remote work of some employees) – can be an important help for organizations and a solution for the city’s ecosystem. The practices of CS in Kyiv businesses were described in a 2009 study by the UN Global Compact, but no systematic analysis of the progress and challenges of CS implementation has been conducted since then.

In October 2020, we decided to update the study and its results will be presented in April 2021.

Our initiative has the following goals:

1. To conduct a comprehensive analysis of the state, problems and prospects of implementing GR in business organizations in Kyiv.
2. Assess the progress of those organizations that already use the practice of CSR;
3. To develop a set of recommendations for local stakeholders (city authorities, businesses, media, NGOs) on how to solve the identified problems with the implementation of the concept of CSR in Kyiv.
4. Raise the discourse of SA through the presentation of the study in the media and discussions with stakeholders.

The goal of the project is to understand the motivation and limitations for using the green office concept, to conduct a comprehensive analysis of the state, problems and prospects for implementing green office in business organizations in Kyiv, and to assess the progress of those organizations that already use green office practices.

The research is conducted in 4 stages:

1. Analysis of literature, expert reports and annual reports of companies.
2. Conducting an open online questionnaire survey among all interested business companies in Ukraine (cross-cut survey).
3. Conducting in-depth interviews with interested parties to identify the needs of Ukrainian business companies in implementing green office principles.
4. Conducting in-depth interviews with companies from the 2009 report on their progress in implementing green office.

The first and second stages of the study have been completed. A list of Ukrainian top companies was compiled and an invitation was sent to open mailboxes to fill out the cross-sectional survey form developed by us. The questionnaire was filled out by leading Ukrainian business companies, such as Naftogaz of Ukraine, 1+1 media and ALLO. We invite your company to join the survey!

At the time of writing this report, the project is at the stage of conducting in-depth interviews with interested companies to identify the needs of Ukrainian business companies in implementing green office principles and with the companies from the 2009 report on their progress in implementing green office. An in-depth interview form has been developed that can be used both to interview interested companies and to interview those who have already had experience in implementing green office principles. The next steps of the project will be to conduct all the planned in-depth interviews.

The Green Office project is prepared within the framework of the Environmental Policy and Advocacy Initiative in Ukraine that has been implemented by the International Renaissance Foundation and enabled by the financial support from Sweden.