Ergo Store green office

Working in a green office created with care for the environment – this was the goal of the Ergo Store Management Board, which in 2018 decided to change the company headquarter. Already during the first visit to the still unfinished Factory Park, at Kuklińskiego 17 in Krakow, we knew that our vision of an environmentally friendly office could be fully implemented in this place.

The industrial space of Factory Park

Factory Park Kuklińskiego is located on the site previously owned by the Transport Cooperative “Zespół”, which was established in 1945 and dealt with transport and forwarding. The building is located directly on the main artery leading to the center of Krakow with a very good exposure and lots of greenery. From the windows of our office there is a view of our garden and the football field.

Most importantly, this investment was created by revitalising the buildings of the former service halls. The perfectly saved industrial character of this place, its history and the fact that the renovation and reconstruction were carried out with the preservation of original buildings, helped us decide to relocate the company’s headquarters.

Ergo Store office – materials and solutions

The phase of designing and selecting finishing materials and equipment was also a time of conscious and responsible decisions. We wanted to preserve the character of this original building, and at the same time implement as many pro-ecological solutions as possible. This is how the green Ergo Store office was established, where wood, steel and glass are the leading finishing materials. When constructing partition walls, we used demolition bricks, and the veneer made of this brick became a very characteristic decorative element. Our office also includes equipment from our previous headquarters at Przemysłowa 13, because recycling is not only about giving waste back for reprocessing, it is also about reusing things and giving them a second life.

This is how Ergo Store moved its headquarters to an environmentally friendly place, where you can find an electric vehicle charging station in the parking lot, and in the common parts of the building, people getting to work by bike can use the changing room and shower. It is worth adding that Factory Park Kuklinski can be easily reached by public transport. The immediate vicinity of the tram line No. 50, which runs every few minutes and is called the “main tram line of Krakow”, means that many of our employees gave up cars as a mean of transport.

Why is the Ergo Store office ECO?

Here are the solutions that allow us to call the Ergo Store office green:

• Recycling program – the kitchen in the Ergo Store office has been equipped with a specially designed system of baskets that help employees correctly distribute waste. The cabinets with baskets have colourful knobs to make the system intuitive. In our garden, we have set up a composter to which all BIO waste goes. They are collected in special biodegradable bags. The compost produced there allows us to power the conifers that grow around our office. In addition to the system of baskets and compost production, our kitchen also boasts recycling drawers in which we store reusable paper bags so necessary to bring the ordered lunch or shopping. The jars also get a second life in our kitchen. We place jars and containers in a specially designated area, which our employees take home for reuse. The dishwasher installed in our office is used wisely and allows for high water savings. It is never half empty and always set to ECO mode.
• In the Ergo Store office, we use potable water dispensers and filters. We take full advantage of the fact that the tap water in Krakow is drinkable without any additional treatment. Our research shows that using glass bottles and reusable dispenser containers replaces approximately 300 1.5-liter plastic bottles per week.
• By using one printing machine, we also have an impact on the number of prints and paper consumption. Each printout made in our office is by definition two-sided and black and white, and our motto is “think before you print”.
• Office at Kuklińskiego 17 is equipped with energy-saving lighting designed especially for our needs. We have proved that good workplace lighting and ecology go hand in hand. LED lighting and intelligent lighting systems create a unique atmosphere in our office, all for the sake of the environment.
• In our case, the term “Green office” has a double meaning. Our place is designed and operated in such a way that it is environmentally friendly, and in addition, it is really green thanks to dozens of plants. Many of them come from reproduction by grafting and transplanting. Several of them came to us in a very bad condition, and thanks to the favourable conditions and care of our office assistant, the plants feel well with us and their condition is good. Greenery in our office has several functions. First of all, it is a great decoration that perfectly complements the equipment made mainly of natural materials such as steel or wood. Plants are also natural curtains that separate zones in our open space and in glass offices. Our flowers also perfectly function as natural air filters. The species were selected to help the ventilation deal with contaminated air entering from outside.

We are constantly deepening our knowledge of socially responsible business, looking for new solutions, so that our office could be an example of the company’s responsible approach to environment protection. 

In this way, we fulfil the assumptions of our environmental policy, which we have described in our code of conduct – its full content can be found here.