Sustainability

8 years ago, Futureproofed was founded on central thought: mainstreaming sustainability. For our own offices and day-to-day operations, we strive to work in the most efficient and sustainable way.

For instance, Serge de Gheldere, the founder of Futureproofed, was one of the first people (1998) in his area to extensively renovate his house according to green building practices, using FSC labelled wooden floors; highly efficient, cellulosic insulation from recycled paper; advanced water-saving measures and recycling of rainwater; day-light and motion sensing efficient fluorescent lighting; toxin-free finishing materials and paints; solar thermal and photovoltaic installations to provide large portion of the energy needed for warm water and an automated robotic electric lawnmower to dramatically reduce sound and greenhouse gas emissions in the neighbourhood.

In the Futureproofed studio:

• We have only one company car, a Toyota Prius. Five team members own a Brompton folding bike allowing for more efficient use of public transportation and daily physical exercise, and we have access to Cambio car sharing in the vicinity of our studio.

• Our offices are furnished with eco-design, reclaimed or re-used furniture, zero-formaldehyde FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) MDF panels, finished with ecological floor covering, and lighted with efficient TL5 lighting and lots of daylight.

• Servers often constitute a considerable part of the energy usage of an agency like ours. We run a powerful, but highly efficient 8-core server built around cutting-edge 45-nm processor technology, achieving up to twice the performance per watt compared to traditional servers. With enhanced idle power, processor power consumption drops as low as 4W. An intelligent thermal control system tracks more than a dozen sensors and manages the speed of each fan, optimally cooling the entire system and reducing power noise. The server power supplies exceed the 80 percent efficiency guidelines in the current ENERGY STAR computer system recommendations;

• More importantly — this server serves as the basis for an agile work process that allows us to efficiently collaborate and track projects seamlessly in and out of the studio. This allows us to reduce our commuting needs and lets us focus on getting the work done in the most flexible and efficient way. Our setup to collaborate on our secure virtual private network includes shared, remote access to a web-collaboration platform and access to series of services such as our proprietary knowledge base, calendaring, customer resource and project management, and 4-way videoconferencing with screen-sharing.


On top of our operations, we like to believe that the greatest impact we can have lies within the work we do for our clients, helping move our economy towards a more sustainable future.