As gappers, we pride ourselves on our passion and being inspired by life. We are passionate about each other, our clients, and our community! We live a high five culture – we celebrate both personal & professional successes and most importantly we break for group snack attack every Wednesday morning. Following a successful team presentation, a client recognized our work-ethic and sent over this note:
“Wanted to thank you for the great meeting and your high quality team expertise to help with [our] business. It is a great pleasure to working with all of you!”
Earlier this month we hosted a golf tournament that raised $57,650 to provide approximately 1,200 safe, reliable rides to doctors appointments, hospital visits, and chemotherapy treatments for children battling cancer. It is easy to see that gappers are passionate.
Recently I noticed a new gapper passion at the office. As gappers take their morning walks to Starbucks carrying empty stainless mugs waiting to be filled by their favorite baristas, or quit buying Costco-sized boxes of plastic forks in lieu of using metal ones from the kitchen, it makes my heart very happy to see gappers spreading their passion and caring to another prong—the environment!
Inspired By Life
When I first joined gap intelligence, I was in awe of the company’s value system and how closely gappers truly live up to those values. The value that I align with the most is passion. I grew up in Northern California where I spent more time in the Santa Cruz Harbor than I did on land. In my world Santa Claus climbed down a chimney covered in sea shells rather than bricks and I regularly played with sea anemones and starfish. Those experiences made me extremely passionate about our oceans, ecosystems, animals, and what they eat and how they live. I am especially concerned about the impact we as humans have on our environment. My childhood in the ocean has paved the way for an adulthood fueled by an extreme passion surrounding sustainability and conservation.
gap intelligence goes green: Snacks, Steps & Paper
There are few things that make my heart happier than walking into the office one morning to see a laminated sign hanging above the trash zone outlining what can and cannot be recycled (per City of San Diego’s website). After all, it is believed that the number #1 inhibitor to recycling is simply confusion.
> Making cans from recycled aluminium reduced energy output by 95% & creates 90% less energy, but still 40 billion aluminum cans go trashed each year.
It especially warms my heart that our gapU committee printed and hung this sign because they were so moved by a Going Green Education class that I taught the company. Talk about passion, over 15 of my peers took the 30 minutes out of their schedule to watch my presentation on pollution and the effects it is having on our ecosystem.
In addition, we hosted a snack attack that was entirely vegan with highlights including Pirate’s Booty and berries. The weekly snack breaks usually include assorted cheeses and meats, but the consideration to go vegan every once and awhile was a collaborative effort by my peers with sustainability in mind, and from what I can tell the meat wasn't incredibly missed.
> Raising livestock is directly responsible for 18% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions – more than every form of transportation combined.
It’s definitely worth noting that gapU’s FitBit Challenge has gappers thinking twice before hopping into a car. In the month of May alone, gappers recorded almost 10 million steps! In the heat of competition, gappers are turning lights off to take meetings outdoors and conscientiously heading outside on foot.
> Increasing walking and biking (did I mention we have communal bikes in the office?!) by just 18 minutes a day decreases greenhouse gas emissions by 14%.
The recent increase in internal Slack messages I’ve received with inquiries about those fake paper coffee cups that can’t be recycled, or the giant box of plastic silverware in our office that has since been replaced with the reusable communal set, or gappers bringing durable shopping bags on their grocery runs to the Trader Joe’s next door – all reinforce how easy it is to reduce one-time use plastics in the office.
> Worldwide, 33% of plastic is used only once & 85% of it is not recycled.
I am proud, enthusiastic, and thankful to work for a company that inspires, encourages, motivates, and supports each employee to live its core values – both inside and outside of the office. As I share my passion for stewardship with my fellow gappers, I am excited to continue to see gap intelligence go green.
