Adobe’s Sustainability Games: SQLI takes gold, for ‘going green’

Dec 02 2022

How long do you keep the water running for when you’re taking a shower? Do you turn the lights off when leaving a room? Could you dry your clothes on a rack rather than use the tumble dryer?

These are just some of the thought-provoking posers raised during the Adobe UK&I Sustainability Games, this October.

The unique initiative saw Adobe join forces with social enterprise outfit Giki Zero and sign up a number of its partners for a fun competition with an important underlying message, designed to help businesses and individuals understand their impact on the planet.

Giki – which stands for Get Informed, Know your Impact – estimates an individual’s carbon footprint from an online questionnaire of their everyday habits, before giving participants steps to help them reduce it.

And with 15 selected Adobe partners signing up and 193 people participating over the 31 days, SQLI came out greener than green, taking the highest overall score and most improved business over the month.

We asked our team to share their experience

For SQLI business analyst Anup Wankhede, who finished top of the SQLI participants, it was an eye-opening exercise.

He said: “It has been a great initiative to be part of and I would encourage everyone to go to the Giki site and have a go. It’s helped me to understand how even the smallest of changes can make a big difference – with very little effort and time out of your day.”

Giki is a free, detailed, science-based carbon calculator for individuals to use to get an idea about their individual carbon footprint. Participants must answer a small questionnaire that covers topics from food and travel to home, helping it estimate their carbon footprint with 150 steps to then try to help reduce it.

For Adobe’s Sustainability Games, Adobe challenged partner agencies to sign up teams to make small incremental changes to their lifestyles with the help of the Giki suggestions.

Over the month, 1,417 steps were taken by the agency teams, equating to a massive 102 tonnes of carbon saved and equivalent to 274 short haul flights.

295k litres of water
2,067 single-use plastic items
15,719 kg of carbon

The impact

SQLI managed to save an amazing 295,292 litres of water, as well as 2,067 single-use plastic items and 15,719kg of carbon along the way.

Anup is donating the £300 prize money that came from SQLI’s own in-house challenge to a company that contributes to afforestation efforts. Impressively, he is still making changes to his day-to-day routine as a result of the initiative.

He continued: “I used to take the car to the shops and now I use my bike. In fact, I’m using my bike more and more since the challenge. The same with our tumble dryer, we use it a lot less and hang the washing out on a clothes horse.

“Other small changes include taking a water bottle with me everywhere I go, even to the restaurant and cinema, rather than buying plastic bottles, cutting down on the amount of time I spend in the shower and eating less meat. It’s about breaking our day-to-day habits.

“The Earth has enough resources for our need but not for our greed.”

Anup Wankhede quoting Mahatma Gandhi

Project manager Mayur Purohit finished second out of the SQLI participants, with Marketing executive Alexia Occhiocupo, third.

Alexia said: “I feel I have a “green” lifestyle already. I have a Mediterranean-type diet, low on red meat and high in veggies. I'm also quite mindful about not using too much water and I cycle a lot.

“The challenge has prompted me to take the things I do a step further. It’s interesting what the fashion industry is doing around sustainability. I would consider renting clothes, especially for a special occasion, rather than buying something you’ll only wear once.

“I used to wear many of my mum’s and grandma’s clothes - I love vintage fashion, but now I’m considering swapping clothes with friends and cutting back on what I buy.”

Sarah Gunderson, Adobe Director Partner Sales, UKI & MEA, was happy with how the initiative inspired so many people across Adobe’s partner ecosystem.

She said: “There was a recent Deloitte report that said sustainability is the third highest topic on people’s minds and we can see that now evolve into corporations, with most businesses having a sustainability agenda.

“We use Giki internally at Adobe and I thought why not bring our partner ecosystem together so we can all think about it, but have a bit of fun at the same time?

“There were two levels to this, one from a company and organisation perspective and helping the partner ecosystem understand a little bit more around Adobe's point of view of sustainability and how we're helping customers. There was an opportunity for us collectively to be working to support our own customers in their own sustainability agenda. Then secondly, I think there was a personal level to it, where you can see your score and how you measure up – and think about reducing your carbon footprint.

“From a personal perspective, I found flying was the biggest impact on my own footprint as it is with many people. So, I have actually looked to reduce the amount of flying I do and stay a bit more local and explore beautiful Britain.

“This initiative has also enlightened close to 200 people in our ecosystem to be more reflective of their own carbon footprint. And if they tell another individual about what they have done, the ripple effects are quite significant. So, it’s about simple steps that can have a widespread impact.

“We were delighted with how the initiative went and thank all the partners and participants for making it a success. The SQLI team did a brilliant job and we hope they have all taken away something useful from it.”