Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)

Lights

The lights in the office come on automatically when movement is sensed. This is a little nerve-wracking when you first walk into a pitch-black bathroom but the lights do come on after a second or two. Most of the time. Ok, always.

Water

We replaced battery-operated sensor-triggered taps in the bathrooms with the push-down variety, thereby reducing the run time from 23 seconds to 16 seconds per use. In a recent bathroom refurbishment we fitted sensors in the urinals to reduce automatic flushing, particularly overnight and when not in use.

Waste management

We separate dry recyclables from non-recyclable waste. We're planning to introduce compost bins in 2019. We expect the Great Sorting War of what can and can't be put in which bin to break out after full-implementation, but over time this will settle down.

Heating and air-conditioning

Our heating and air-conditioning is centrally controlled by Facilities' BMS (Business Management System), to ensure an ambient temperature of 16 degrees. If the air outside the building changes our BMS adjusts accordingly. Despite the best efforts of our Facilities team, there has never been a single recorded instance of everyone being happy with the temperature at their desk at the same time.

Christmas tree

We buy our Christmas tree from a member of the Irish Christmas Tree Growers. The Irish Christmas Tree Growers represents those growers who are committed to producing trees to the highest standards and in an environmentally sustainable and professional manner. We choose a real tree instead of an artificial one, because Conifer trees remove carbon from the atmosphere and release oxygen. Between 'oil' or 'soil', i.e. plastic (non-renewable resource) or real (beneficial to the environment), we choose the latter. Once Christmas is over, and we are miserably wondering why we ate so much chocolate, the tree is collected and mulched for compost.

Cleaning supplies

We examine the CSR charters of our suppliers, and pay particular attention to chemicals in products and request alternatives to be used instead.

Single-use plastic

We are road-testing 7oz compostable water cups to accompany the water coolers on all floors. In 2019 we are removing all non-recyclable, non-compostable cups from our tea station and canteen, and are working towards removing all plastic cutlery. The CSR team members have been known to shake their heads sadly at people caught using single-use vessels. (Rather awkward if any of the CRS team have forgotten to bring in their own keep cups and are reduced to using single-use cups for the day; we've had to hide in meeting rooms when drinking tea or coffee from these shameful containers).

Paper
We are actively investigating the sourcing and use of all paper used in our communications. The tax textbooks are now available on Kindle and CharteredTextbooksOnline piloted in 2019 with six books which students can read online or on tablets. Accountancy Ireland is actively promoting digital alternatives to print, and Briefly, Extra, The Career Guide, Abroad, Vision and the upcoming financial services magazine are online only. The revamped magazine uses heavier paper stock to give the print magazine a more premium feel, and the paper used is sourced from sustainable, ecologically managed forests and is 100% recyclable. It is delivered in Dublin by An Post, whose fleet is now zero-emissions.

The CPD brochure printing was reduced by 75% in 2020 and sent to targeted recipients only. During 2020, we migrated our CPD programme online, building a portal for live webinars and redirecting staff to support it.

In addition to hosting all exams online, we also launched a Learning Hub in 2020, a new online portal to host all the course materials, recorded lectures, notes and links to live webinars.

The roof

We have two families of seagulls living on the roof of Chartered Accountants Ireland in Pearse Street. We’re not friends with them, as they try to steal our lunches (and they are unbelievably noisy), but we love them and like to think that they love us. For this reason, we have abandoned our plans to install a beehive on the roof or plant a roof garden (Also, our roof is inaccessible to all but the most harnessed-in specially qualified staff, who can look a seagull in the eye and continue with their work.) We leave the roof to them. If only they would leave the street and our sandwiches to us, but there you go. Can’t win them all. 

We now have two yoga classes (Monday and Thursday) to facilitate more participants who need the get the benefits of a good stretch.

Movember is also dear to our hearts. In support of the charity that tackles prostate cancer, testicular cancer, mental health and suicide prevention, five of our colleagues grew luxuriant facial hair to our thunderous applause. May there be more mos in the future (in November only. Let's not go nuts. Magnum PI was the 80s, dudes. Only ten men in the world can wear that moustache and Tom Selleck is nine of them.)

We also run out every now and then en masse to donate blood at our nearest blood donor clinic in D’Olier Street. Although this is to ensure that the blood supplies in the city’s hospitals are at a robust level, there is suspicion that our motivation actually stems from sweets, cheese and cold drinks that are given to donors, as well as the chance to lie down for a while. For shame. Would we be that venal? Apparently, yes.

Finally – well, not really finally, but we get tired of all this typing – we receive Wellness information from our Employee Assistance Programme providers via the HR department, from which links us to a whole site with webinars, and articles. We also get flu jab vouchers if we want one. Who wants the flu? Man flu is one thing, but the real thing? No.