source{d} Social Responsibility

[ricardobaeta]

I would like to suggest/propose for us, as a company, to have an attitude towards helping people in Madrid in difficult conditions, as volunteers. As an example, doing some Community work to help homeless people. I do it in Lisbon as volunteer for Comunidade Vida e Paz.

[campoy]

+1 I'd love to also consider the same initiative in SF

[eiso]

This is a really nice idea. Would someone be willing to spearhead this in Madrid?

Could also be part of people's personal section of the OKR's.

[dpordomingo]

I like the idea a lot and I would also participate in the events.
I've no enough time to take care of its organization, but I would also help with it if someone leads it

[eiso]

@ricardobaeta I'd love to see how I can get involved in volunteering in Lisbon. My travel schedule makes it a bit tricky but if there is something I can do regardless, I'd like to.

[ricardobaeta]

@eiso I'll talk with Joaquim, the coordinator of the Saturday team, to ask him if I can bring a guest - formal name and totally ok - on the next lisbon trip. I'll let you know as soon as I can!

[gomesfernanda]

I'm totally in. I've never volunteered as part of an organization, I've always done it by myself, so I'm not familiar on how to proceed, but I can do some research.

[smola]

Could also be part of people's personal section of the OKR's.

At the risk of looking grumpy, I would avoid this being part of OKRs. While the intentions are great, this leads to some not-so-good side-effects:

• This means that the company is benchmarking an activity that is not performed as part of one's job.
• This also puts at disadvantage those that, while doing volunteer work, do not want to disclose it publicly. There is a number of reasons for that, but IMHO the strongest one is that some types of volunteer work can trigger retaliation by state or non-state institutions in some countries. In other cases it's just a more general matter of privacy.
• It will put the company in the position of judging what is acceptable volunteer work and what is not. Does political party militancy qualify? What about social work that implies religious or political proselytism? And volunteer work that implies civil disobedience and, as such, is subject to legal prosecution in some countries (refugee assistance sometimes falls into this category)?

[eiso]

@smola your comment is awesome and I couldn't agree more, touched upon some things I had never considered. Learned something from this.

[meyskens]

Not sure what the status on this is?

I am a volunteer myself at Moeders voor moeders. As an organization that strongly depends on (unpaid) volunteers it is always super nice to see people from companies getting a few days per year where they can volunteer. Even one time volunteers can be a great help in busy periods of the year.

For making it an OKR I totally agree with @smola here. Maybe it might be an idea to give a few days per year of volunteer days as an optional "perk" (not familiar with the exact terms) which would apply to an organization of choice. In Belgium the government maintains a website for volunteers to find places where they need help, not sure if that is done everywhere else too. This could be handy for people who want to do this but don't know where to volunteer.

Happy to have a discussion about this!

[m09]

This issue would also be a good place to discuss source{d} impact on climate and what we could do to mitigate it in the light of the recent report from IPCC.

I see two points where we probably have a worse effect on climate than a regular company:

1. we fly a lot
2. we use lots of electricity to compute stuff

To mitigate those we could:

1. take the train when it's possible (I can for sure do it to go to FOSDEM for example). + now trains have wifi in most places and it's actually easier to work than when flying
2. make sure we buy renewable energy. I'm not sure of how it works in Spain but in France it makes sure that EDF (the state provider) must buy back the amount of electricity you consume from renewable-energy sites
3. not related to 1. and 2. but we could have recycling bins in Madrid office since it's a low hanging fruit

[meyskens]

Just commenting om point 1 here: we fly a lot + take the train when it's possible
I actually took the train from Brussels to Madrid. While it is doable (and in my opinion amazing) it is a lot more expensive than flying to the point where I didn't feel well for the company spending that much money on it. (which in the end i payed most myself)

[m09]

Indeed it's a big problem and it restricts the train options to main lines (Paris-Bruxelles is ok for example) :/

[meyskens]

In France and Belgium you start to see train companies starting their own low-cost but slower (=less infrastructure costs) train offers like izy and ouigo which is certainly a cheap option compared to flying but only on a few lines do they operate.

[smola]

make sure we buy renewable energy. I'm not sure of how it works in Spain but in France it makes sure that EDF (the state provider) must buy back the amount of electricity you consume from renewable-energy sites

There's some companies / coops doing this. One of them, which works nationally is Som Energia. There are a few others that do it, sometimes operating only in specific regions.