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Street Sense
We proudly support the efforts of Street Sense through the contribution of in-kind services. Street Sense is a Washington, D.C.-based 16-page biweekly street newspaper that was founded in 2003. Its mission is to raise public awareness on the issues of homelessness and poverty in the city and to create economic opportunities for people experiencing homelessness.
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Bottled Water
What is even better than recycling a plastic bottle? Never using one! New Signature has a filtered water system (for both hot and cold water) installed in the office so that our staff can drink as much water as they want and never use a disposable plastic bottle.
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Recycle Electronics
New Signature works hard to combat the environmental problem of unwanted electronic equipment being dumped into landfills. As a result we use a number of strategies to ensure that computer-related waste are being recycled, reused, or disposed of in an environmentally conscious way. We use GreenDisk’s Technotrash Cans and TurtleWings to dispose of e-waste. For computer equipment that still has a useful life we typically find a new home for it with a nonprofit who will derive value from the donation.
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Public Transportation/Car Sharing
Fewer cars on the road translates to a greener world. To do our part, we participate in WMATA’s SmartBenefits program and provide each employee with a corporate Zipcar membership. Participation in WMATA’s SmartBenefits program encourages our staff to use public transportation for commuting. While we encourage our staff to use public transportation to visit clients, sometimes they have to drive. Zipcar allows them not to have to bring cars to work-instead they can simply use a Zipcar on an hourly basis.
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Dodging Diabetes
Dodge, duck, dip, dive, and raise money and awareness to defeat diabetes for good! New Signature is a proud sponsor and participant of the Dodging Diabetes Charity Dodgeball Tournament, which has raised more than $60,000 for the Joslin Diabetes Center through its annual charity dodgeball tournaments.
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Recycle and reuse!
Where possible New Signature purchases products that are composed of recycled materials, or in the case of office furniture we often purchase second hand. Our goal is to limit the amount of materials that enter the landfill. Where possible we find new homes for large items that we no longer have use for, such as office furniture, using resources such as Freecycle and Craigslist. We also make sure there is a healthy population of blue recycle bins scattered throughout our office.
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How much electricity does my computer use?
We work with clients to implement environmentally friendly policies that reduce energy consumption. Through implement virtualization we reduce the number of physical servers in a network and we create policies that force computers and monitors to sleep/hibernate during periods of inactivity. We also practice what we preach. In 2009, through virtualization we cut the number of servers in our own network environment in half—eliminating a server cabinet worth of servers. And of course, the servers that were downsized were donated to non-profits.