Employees Driving Change

NI Green Team

The National Instruments Green Team is an all-volunteer internal organization at NI corporate headquarters working to reduce the ecological footprint of NI and its employees. The fast-growing team, established in 2008, worked on many projects in 2010 that help NI in its commitment to be a responsible citizen to the global community. Several of these projects are highlighted here.

Green Smackdown
The second annual Green Smackdown competition was held between two teams of employees who measured their carbon footprints and pledged to make changes for one week to reduce their footprint. The contenders, Waterloo Labs (a group of recent college graduates) and the Quarter Century Club (a group of NI employees who have been with the company for at least 25 years), recruited teams of followers to join in and cut their own footprints for a week.

The contenders documented their journey using Facebook, Twitter, and blog posts, fostering excitement and a sense of community around trying to reduce carbon footprint. The teams recruited more than 130 people to join them, including two NI vice presidents, Victor Mieres and Pete Zogas. Each person reviewed a list of possible changes they could make to cut their footprint and pledged to make a change for one week, ranging from eating local food from the farmers market to adjusting their thermostat by just one degree.

By the end of the week, the two teams alone made enough changes to cut their carbon footprint by 54 tons if they sustained their changes for the rest of the year. To put their impact in perspective, the average American's footprint is 27 tons.

NI Bus Route
Capital Metro, the Austin-area transportation authority, collaborated with the Green Team to create a connector bus route dedicated to NI employees and employees of a few other local businesses on the same route. The idea was to make it easier for employees to take advantage of the new MetroRail commuter train, whose closest station to headquarters is less than 2 mi away. The bus drops off just outside the main NI entrance.

Because the bus route and bus stop are relatively new, the Green Team is working on a promotional plan for 2011 to educate employees and encourage more participation. The team is also researching the feasibility of creating a pretax savings plan that employees can use to cover commuting costs.

On-Campus Community-Supported Agriculture Pickup Station
The Green Team worked with Johnson's Backyard Garden, a local, organic farm, located 5 miles from downtown Austin, to establish a community-supported agriculture (CSA) pickup station at NI corporate headquarters. When an employee subscribes to a farm's CSA, they pay a fee to receive regular boxes of goods, usually produced by the farm. The challenge is that subscribers usually must drive to the farm to pick up their box, and the farms aren't always conveniently located.

To make it easier for employees to take advantage of this CSA, NI worked with the farm to establish a pickup station at headquarters. Employees who subscribe can now pick up their produce each Thursday before leaving work.

On-Site Community Garden
In 2010, NI cleared a plot of land at headquarters for employees to use to grow organic produce. The garden was a result of a grassroots effort to give apartment-dwellers or others who had no land of their own a place to garden, and to give anyone interested the opportunity to learn about organic gardening and its nutritional and other health benefits.

The gardeners worked before and after hours to prepare the selected plot of land, removing weeds and grasses and creating raised beds to avoid planting directly in the hard, clay and limestone-filled ground. The garden was ready for planting in the spring of 2010.

Earth Week
The second-annual Earth Week at NI featured events including presentations, markets/fairs, and a nature hike led by an employee who is also a Master Naturalist. More than 320 employees attended the nine scheduled Earth Week events (60 percent more than in 2009), while many others participated in the "On Your Own Schedule" events. Other examples of Earth Week events include the following:

• Collection boxes in each lobby for batteries, cell phones, and e-waste to be recycled
• The kickoff of the Kill-a-Watt lending library, where employees can check out a device that helps them determine which of their electronics and appliances use the most energy
• Smart cars available for employees to test-drive

Employees at headquarters were not the only Earth Week participants. The NI Hungary branch office celebrated by planting flowers inside their building, and NI Canada participated in Toronto's 20-minute makeover, where they helped clean up the city's streets.