Civinity Solutions CEO: sustainability is important, but offices are reluctant to give up bins

Civinity Solutions CEO: sustainability is important, but offices are reluctant to give up bins

Civinity Solutions, a subsidiary of Civinity, one of the largest building maintenance and engineering solutions groups in the Baltics, and a provider of commercial cleaning services, has started the year with a new sustainability initiative and is urging customers to ditch under-desk bins to encourage waste segregation in the office. According to the company’s CEO Edita Gimbickaja, more and more customers are joining the initiative, but many still find it difficult to change their habits.

It is no longer surprising to find waste sorting bins in offices – there are now fewer offices that do not have them than vice versa. But it is one thing to have sorting equipment and quite another to actively use it.

One of the reasons why much of the waste in offices remains unsorted is the bins under desks.

“Trash bins under desks do not encourage employees to walk to the waste sorting bins in the designated office area. If the bin also contains a bin bag, workers throw everything into the bin: paper and food waste. This waste cannot be sorted out later, so all its contents go into the general waste stream,” says Edita Gimbickaja, the company’s manager.

Vilma Bružienė, a partner at Town Projects, an office design and planning company, has also noticed this trend:

“We still see cases where there are bins at every workstation in the office, which means that the company is not sorting waste properly. In order to achieve our sustainability goals, we recommend first of all to do away with the bins at workplaces and thus encourage employees to take their rubbish to the kitchenette. There are many solutions on the market today that are both visually pleasing and easy to sort,” says Bružienė.

Civinity Solutions offers its customers two alternatives when it comes to sorting in the office: either to do away with under-desk bins altogether, or at least to do away with the garbage bags that are placed in them.

It is estimated that the company’s customers alone use over 300,000 rubbish bags a year in their offices, which are placed in the bins under their desks. This solution, which is commonplace and has been used for many years, not only discourages employees from sorting waste in their offices, but also adds to environmental pollution.

According to the company’s CEO, in order to achieve sustainability goals, it is possible and necessary to educate employees about the importance of waste segregation in the office. However, a decisive decision to change employees’ habits is often much more effective:

“I like to use the example of Japan when talking to clients about this initiative: people who have been there know that there are no bins on the streets of the cities in this country, and that people take their rubbish home and sort it there. This example shows that in order to really encourage waste sorting, it is not only necessary to educate people, but also to implement fundamental changes in the way we organise our waste to encourage people to change,” says Ms Gimbickaja.

People are still used to eating or snacking at their desk and throwing their waste in the bin under their desk. By making it a rule to eat only in the office kitchen or other designated areas, companies reduce the amount of waste that is not sorted.

According to Bružienė, every change is naturally met with hesitation at first, but once Town Projects’ customers have given up their bins, they never go back to them.

“Our customers’ experience shows that employees quickly get used to the new waste sorting practice. By the way, when companies do away with individual bins, they not only introduce good sorting practices, but also improve the aesthetic appearance of the office. Let’s face it, a bin under the desk is not the prettiest part of an office interior,” comments Bružienė.

Not having individual bins is not only about office aesthetics and sustainability. Eliminating under-desk bins or bags placed under desks can significantly save on office cleaning costs.

Over 30% of Civinity Solutions’ customers have signed up to the initiative since the beginning of this year, which has reduced the number of bin bags used in offices by over 50,000 units. The companies that have taken part in the initiative and made decisive decisions are not only seeing a change in their employees’ habits, but also a reduction in the cost of cleaning their offices.

“Civinity is one of the largest building maintenance and engineering solutions groups in the Baltics. The company brings together more than 30 companies that maintain 10 million square metres of residential and commercial buildings and have installed hundreds of engineering systems in different European cities. In 2023, the Civinity team had over 1,500 employees in Lithuania, Latvia and the UK, with revenues of EUR 87.7 million and EBITDA of EUR 7.12 million.

“Civinity Solutions is a Civinity Group company providing commercial cleaning services in Lithuania and Latvia. In 2023, Civinity Solutions had over 280 employees and revenues of EUR 5.9 million.

“Town projects is a real estate project management and implementation services company developing office transformation and fit-out projects in Lithuania, Germany, Italy and Poland.