Sustainability
We’re a certified green location, working towards being truly net zero by 2030
Our Aim
Impact Hub Vienna was founded in 2010 in the heart of Vienna’s 7th district. For more than 10 years, we have made an impact in many areas and continue to grow every day. Our community comprises of more than 600 members who want to improve the world with us. Our motto is: We want to create a world that works for everyone! Thus, sustainability is also a central focus for us. With the Austrian Ecolabel we want to go one step further in this area. As a coworking and event location, we welcome many guests and members to our premises every day, so we try to implement as many environmentally friendly measures as possible.
Our sustainability philosophy
Catering
For our events and functions we work with organic and Austrian eco-label certified partners as well as local businesses, some of which deliver by cargo-bike. We also source Fairtrade coffee which is by default paired with oat milk in our coffee machines.
When planning our events, we offer to our guests almost exclusively vegetarian and vegan dishes to encourage guests to choose our vegan and vegetarian dishes.
We visibly display allergen information at each buffet to best inform our guests with various intolerances.
Our reusable dishes and cutlery are in-house. We only offer bottled drinks in Mehrweg-Glas, except for wine, which will hopefully be put into use in 2027.
If there is leftover food from an event, it will be distributed in our community or taken by our food sharing partners.
Education
At Impact Hub Vienna, all employees are asked to read the sustainability handbook within 4 weeks of starting and reread the handbook once a year. Why? This enables us to have quality conversations about sustainability as the handbook sets up a common knowledge base for all of us to step up from.
Through our partnership with a number of foundations, we get granted access to online courses about sustainability among other topics. People are free to join them if they wish to develop their knowledge further.
Inclusivity
The vast majority of the ground floor in our Lindengasse offices is accessible via a wheelchair and there is a wheelchair accessible toilet. Access to the space is currently via a 75.5cm fold out ramp. The space also has gender-neutral toilets for everyone’s use. Furthermore, we aim to be gender-language conscious in our online and offline written and spoken materials. Finally, we are committed to providing a space which is for the most-part fragrance-free. If smells need to be used, we only use the bare minimum and ensure that the products are natural (e.g. dried lavender or natural essential oils diluted in spray bottles used in WCs). The event rooms have an audio induction loop system, and our signage includes Braille translation.The reception is accessible, and the catering area is equipped with lower surfaces for easier accessibility.
Transportation
Due to our central location in the 7th district, we encourage all our guests to arrive by public transport or by bike.
The U3 station Zieglergasse is only a few minutes walk away, as well as the train and subway station Westbahnhof. This unique location makes it easy for our guests to reach us, both from within Austria and from abroad.
The information on how to get to our location is displayed on our website.
We also encourage and support environmentally friendly travel by bicycle. We have bicycle parking spaces in both of our courtyards to provide ample parking. And if there happen to be any mechanical problems with your bike, we are happy to offer the use of our bike toolbox.
Waste
Since we mainly use our in-house dishes for events as well as for our coworking community, we significantly reduce our waste in the area of disposable dishes.
When we serve catering, our portions are calculated based on the number of people to minimise unnecessary food waste during the ordering process. We encourage guests, through reusable signs around the buffet, to take only as much of the food as they can eat.
Our recycling stations invite proper waste separation. Any food that is not eaten during an event and is still edible is usually served to the community, that way avoiding food waste. Moreover, to avoid office items being thrown out prematurely, we aim to sell or give-away items that are no longer needed on Willhaben (an Austrian item-selling platform).
Water & energy
By installing new water nozzles in our restroom facilities, we can save up to 80% in water usage. In times of ever hotter summers and potential drought scenarios, we do our part.
We also save energy with our wi-fi connected presence-detecting thermostats, which lower the temperature at night and keep it constant during the day when people are in the rooms. They also enable us to set up “non-heating periods” thus preventing us from heating rooms when no one is going to be there (e.g. winter period, national holidays). We also run our offices on Austrian ecolabel certified renewable electricity which means that we are supporting a system which aims to produce electricity in a sustainable manner. Lastly, we have installed and are planning an expansion of honey-combed window blinds on the 3rd and 1st floor office spaces. They enable us to maintain a more comfortable internal temperature as the blinds keep the heat out during summer and keep the warmth in during winter.
OUR PROGRESS
Certifications
