There’s no quick fix for sustainable business practices. Instead of greenwashing or symbolic carbon offset payments, we focus on direct donations. Sustainability is an ongoing journey for us, and the social aspects of the SDGs play a central role—because they have an immediate impact.
2024 – Wheels Were Turning – Even with our small team, we made great strides and can look back on a successful year.
How did our team experience the tour? Vanessa, Simone, Robert and Jenny talk about communication and the opportunities of remote working.
Our “A Day in the Life” series takes you aboard the VAST with Maren and Matthias, the founders and management team of Vast Forward GmbH. Their typical (work)day in their floating office combines early starts (thanks to time zones!) with workout routines, morning rituals, team collaborations, and the many ways to make each day productive, inspiring, and enjoyable!
Between air conditioning and cocktail drive-ins: Here are our "aha" moments about clichés and surprises from our USA bike tour!
Digital consumption creates invisible emissions impacting our climate. Discover in our latest blog post how Green Data and Green Coding can contribute to a more sustainable digital future – and learn the simple steps each of us can take to reduce our carbon footprint.
In March, our three-week Green Challenge took place, in which we solved daily mini-tasks on sustainability as a team.
VAST FORWARD has been a proud member of the German Sustainable Business Association (BNW) since the end of 2021.
The Internet – responsible for up to 3.7% of global CO2 emissions! And there are no standards or measures to reduce this figure aesily in our daily lives! As part of the "Sustainability Action Days," we organized a team challenge, focusing on digital infrastructure in our daily lives
Since June 2021, the VAST GREEN team has seen quite a few changes, as four ladies have joined us.
In our energy-saving challenge, we share simple tips and tricks on how to save energy and money in everyday life.
Our return trip from New York to Texas takes us on new, green roads all the way to Niagara Falls. Find out why we had to change plans and how we're collecting miles for better bike paths!
How do you lead a company remotely from a bike? We share our experiences and learnings from the VAST on Wheels “New York and Back” tour.
In this blog post, you'll learn why superficial climate protection measures are not enough and how we at VAST FORWARD are approaching sustainability in a deeper way, rethinking compensation, and investing in investigative journalism to promote long-term, impactful solutions to the climate crisis.
Discover in the format 'A Day in the Life of' from Simone, who has been working as a Project Manager & Accounting and Management Assistant at VAST FORWARD since 2010, a glimpse into her workday, balancing meetings, ducks, horses, beaches, and family!
Read about the complexities of CO2 compensation and sustainability in business, uncovering the pitfalls of greenwashing and our approach for genuine environmental action.
In the format "A Day in the Life of", find out from Jenny, Project Manager & responsible for international affairs at VAST FORWARD, what her typical day looks like and how she meets the challenges of working remotely.
Our experiences and insights on plastic during a bike tour from Texas to New York. Why is there so much single-use-plastic in the USA?
This year's team event was guided by the theme "From Early Writing to Prompting - Text is Alive and Kicking". A day full of culture, sunshine, and challenges!
We had our virtual kick-off event for our annual get-together and challenge. Here, you can find what Kay told us about the history of letters and typography!
Our Impact Report 2023 is here! This year's focus was on expanding our sustainability efforts beyond our company and into our wider network. Check it out for tips on green coding and our ongoing efforts to contribute and not JUST compensate!
In the format "A Day in the Life of", find out from Maria, Project Manager & Event Coordinator at VAST FORWARD, what her typical day looks like - from the versatility at work and last-minute requests to calming walks along the Elbe river.
Information and communication technology accounts for five to nine percent of global electricity consumption - the rapidly advancing digitization will increase this share to 21 percent by 2030. So, let’s think about sustainability when programming our future.
In the format "A Day in the Life of", find out from Vanessa, Project Manager & Corporate Creative at VAST FORWARD, what her typical day looks like - from relaxed morning routines and creative tasks to team meetings and projects.
Robert Göse, developer at Vast Forward since 2023! In this interview, Robert talks about his first experiences at Vast Forward, about green coding and green data - it's about sustainability and programming, and about a concrete approach to our professional task in the world of digital communication.
Always data! Where does it come from, the data that surrounds us in our personal and professional lives today? If the "Internet" in the early days consisted of more or less directly connected individual "workstations", today's data infrastructure requires a somewhat more complex system: one that still needs physical devices somewhere. Devices that need to be fail-safe, redundant and resilient and that ultimately require resources and a lot of energy for all these requirements, for operation and cooling! Here we go... here is our blog post on the topic of "GREEN HOSTING".
2023 - What a year! Fortunately, just like last year, we used our annual workshop to look back on 2023, because a lot has happened. Find out more in this blog post.
Sustainability - to be honest, this was a late addition to our values. We were already on the right track with our female-led business, our remote shop structure, our non-commuting, diverse team, our minimal office use and last but not least our fully sustainable floating office VAST... But we've learned from what's going on around us.
The terms 'climate-neutral' or ‘compensation’ are just two among many that we frequently encounter in the media, on products, and in our everyday interactions. In this blog post, we aim to explore why the use of these terms is problematic, why a significant number of companies still employ them for 'greenwashing,' and how we address the challenges of climate change.
Data, data, data! How we handle, share, and transfer this almost uncountable amount of bits and bytes affects the resources needed; we're far beyond magnetic tape, floppy disks, CDs, and local hard drives… here's our blogpost on "data".
The topic of giving and receiving feedback and maintaining a healthy team structure affects every organization. We have therefore put together a short summary of the most important facts.
Video - a success story! The idea of "video" began in the mid-70s of the last century, when VHS overtook Betamax. Today, more than 30 years of digitization later, "video" stands for media consumption via on-demand streaming and for social interaction in private and professional life... But video is also an energy-related eCO2 disaster. Can we do anything about it?
Streaming will always be a climate-negative technology. But we can have a positive impact on the carbon footprint of streaming through our mindful usage behavior without completely giving it up - even if we start with small steps.
Vast Forward's 15th anniversary - what better reason to gather the team in Hamburg and pop some corks? Coming from afar, the core team took the train to meet in Hamburg, and man did we have a blast! We really enjoyed our little birthday party, including a photo shoot and a "15th" birthday cake.
Part 4 | Trust is our core value! At Vast Forward, trust begins with our internal training and further education, in which we invest a lot of time as a team. We believe that our independent, self-reliant work is only possible through mutual trust in diverse, responsible tasks, for example in our internal tandem principle. Trust is created and can grow by being there for each other, even at a distance - accessible and in ever-changing virtual teams.
Every day, countless emails land in our private and professional email inboxes. Each email consumes 27 g of eCO2! How can we reduce our CO2 consumption with regard to emails? We show you ways to save CO2 in your email inbox.
We Do Not Just Compensate - why our motto is still relevant in 2023 and how we minimise our carbon footprint with the help of Wilderness International.
The Internet – responsible for up to 3.7% of global CO2 emissions! And there are no standards or measures to reduce this figure aesily in our daily lives! As part of the "Sustainability Action Days," we organized a team challenge, focusing on digital infrastructure in our daily lives
Since 2021, the entire Vast Forward team has been driving our sustainability initiative, VAST GREEN. After two years, we asked the team. One thing we can say in advance, even after 2 years, it is still fun to work as a team and push for VAST GREEN!
What impact does our streaming behavior have on the environment and what can we do better in the future? Episode 5 of our streaming blog post series is about our streaming behavior and 3 simple ways to stream more sustainably!
The topic of "GREEN DATA" has been on our minds at Vast Forward since 2021. We want to share what we mean by GREEN DATA and why we are concerned with the topic as a digital service provider in this blog post series.
Part 3 | Discipline - sounds old-fashioned and strict... but discipline is fundamental for us as a decentralized, purely virtual team! Discipline helps us achieve more and continually improve together in self-organization and self-responsibility. Along with the other core values, discipline forms the backbone of our virtual teams.
We look at our Impact Report - what have we achieved as a team in 2022 as part of our sustainability initiative VAST GREEN.
VAST FORWARD has been doing public relations work for a long time - but how do you successfully communicate the path of our sustainability initiative VAST GREEN?
47%: This is the share of greenhouse gas emissions from streaming end devices themselves. Smartphones, tablets, computers and TVs are the biggest emitters of digital greenhouse gases. For a closer look at the causes and, of course, how we can reduce them, check out Episode 04 of our blog post series on streaming. Enjoy!
Part 2 | Growth as a core value – our basis and thriving to continue our high quality work while learning, evolving and innovating to bring about meaningful change in our world.
We have set out regular reporting in our sustainability strategy, which forms the basis of our VAST GREEN sustainability initiative. With our podcast 'Viertel Eins' (Quarter to One), we are now using another space to report on our progress: How did we start our sustainability journey as a digital company, and how does one actually become 'sustainable' as a company?
In episode 02 of our streaming series, we discussed the impact of data centers on climate and the environment, and highlighted the possibilities of their more energy-efficient use. Now, in episode 03, let's take a look at the environmental impact of the network infrastructure required for streaming.
Are you up for a nice sporting challenge? Read more about what we learn and hope to learn from challenges - and some results - here.
Can an Artificial Intelligence (AI) provide us with answers to the big problems of our time and what can we learn from it? Vanessa tested it and arranged to meet OpenAi's AI 'ChatGPT' for coffee and cake to chat about resource consumption, sustainability and climate change. Warning, spoilers: In the end, she was a bit disappointed.
In February 2023 - VAST FORWARD Data Protection Month - we presented fun facts and lifehacks on the everyday challenges of protecting your own data, secure passwords, cookie binders, virus protection and security through a tidy desktop.
Unser zweiter Workshop drehte sich rund um das Framework hinter VAST GREEN und wie wir in Arbeitsgruppen unsere nachhaltige Zukunft entwickeln.
Remote work has developed into a buzzword, a term that is closely linked to the concept of "new work": Home office, no more commuting, no more meetings in stuffy conference rooms but video conferencing and virtual meetings. Self-determined work on the one hand - loss of control for management, sweatpants mentality and lack of team culture on the other.
In episode 02 of our streaming series, which shows ways to curb the carbon footprint of streaming, we look at the role of data centres and their impact on the climate and environment. Is there potential for savings, what opportunities are data centres offering for an energy-efficient use and what are streaming providers doing for more sustainable streaming in terms of data centres?
Part 1 | It might seem unconventional to include "love" as a value in a professional setting, but hear us out. After all, we spend most of our waking hours working, and we believe that work should come with its own emotional investment ...
What impact does our streaming behaviour have on the environment and what can we do better in the future? In episode 1 of our new blogpost series on streaming, we take a look back - on how we spent the end of the year, how it all began and how cloud computing became a cloud.
2022 - A year in which a lot happened in terms of sustainability - not only internally at VAST FORWARD, but also externally. In this blog article, we would like to review this eventful year and above all, look back at the highlights.
We've seen this year, hard work pays off, because we've received a number of certifications in 2022 that reflect our efforts at VAST FORWARD. In the following article, we will go into more detail about these certifications and explain what's behind them.
Because science explores relationships and causes and can describe human actions over time, because it measures and visualizes impacts, and because it offers evidence-based solutions, it can also be said that without science, without its findings, there is no sustainability.
Impulses on sustainability/green tech, celebrating & networking - these were the keywords for our Developer Day 2022 by VAST FORWARD in Dresden.
Why it is so important for our mental health that we enjoy our job and how VAST FORWARD contributes to the well-being of your employees.
Even though our motto is "We Do Not Just Compensate", we also have to compensate for CO2 emissions that cannot be avoided.
Last week it was Challenge Time again! This time, we took on the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Sustainability is a business model today. Many consultancies offer "one size fits all" solutions to offset CO2 - an approach that does not fit VAST FORWARD.
What does green hosting depend on? In this article we clarify together with our hosting partner.
After creating our very first Green-Challenge in march the VAST GREEN team once again participated a challenge - the plastic-free july.
VAST ladies Franzi and Vanessa are talking about their favorite second hand pieces and the stories behind them.
The list of our VAST FORWARD sustainability criteria also serve as a basis for review and collaboration with our stakeholders.
Adding yoga to the workplace makes a significant contribution to the social sustainability of the company. Not only does it keep us VAST ladies physically and mentally healthy, it also has positive effects on the company itself, on teamwork and thus on social sustainability in the company.
Independent of power and water supply - self-sufficiency! In order for Maren & Matthias to be able to live and work independently on their VAST, they primarily need enough electricity and drinking water. How do they do it, off the grid and surrounded by the salty sea?
In March, our three-week Green Challenge took place, in which we solved daily mini-tasks on sustainability as a team.
On Sustainable Friday, we share short presentations on a wide range of sustainability topics as a team.
Interview with Maren & Matthias Wagener about VAST GREEN
With our IMPACT Report, we want to create comparability and transparency about our CSR activities and, as an SME, we already meet European reporting standards.
In 2022, a lot will happen with regard to the topic of sustainability in companies. In this blog post, we look at which new regulations and legislation will be relevant for SMEs from 2022.
Sustainable management also includes addressing social sustainability. You can find out how VAST FORWARD implements this here in the blog post.
Gendering is not hype, but creates unambiguity and adequately represents all genders in language. Join us on our journey from generic masculine to the here and now.
VAST FORWARD has been a proud member of the German Sustainable Business Association (BNW) since the end of 2021.
CO2 labels have experienced a boom in recent years. But what is behind CO2 labels and when do we have to talk about greenwashing?
As a digital service provider and 100% remote organisation, we work with different hardware and software on a daily basis - they are our most important tools in everyday project work.
As a value-based company, we decided at the beginning of 2021 to integrate the topic of sustainability even more strongly into the VAST FORWARD corporate culture.
How can we as a company and as individual employees assume social responsibility and make a positive contribution to social sustainability?
Why VAST GREEN is a comprehensive, science-based strategy implementation and our goals are formulated as Objectives and Key Results (OKRs).
The path to the VAST GREEN website - How a platform of open exchange was created from a scribble.
Since June 2021, the VAST GREEN team has seen quite a few changes, as four ladies have joined us.
What is behind CO2 compensation and why are we trying to go one step further with VAST GREEN?
Interview with sustainability expert Alyssa Jade McDonald-Bärtl about our VAST GREEN initiative and our path to sustainability.
How we shaped our sustainability strategy for VAST GREEN from our guiding principles together with Alyssa Jade McDonald-Baertl.
In two of our L&L in 2020, we addressed the questions of how we can make a positive contribution on a personal level and as a company.
The attempt to delve into the topic of "sustainability" during our "Dev Day" failed because of Corona - and yet marks the start of the VAST GREEN initiative.
Yey, finally, the website for our VAST GREEN Initiative is live! Initiated by an internal event, we have been moving forward step by step with our project VAST GREEN, since 2019.