From July to September, W participated in the AIA NYC's Zero Waste Challenge, aiming to decrease overall waste and increase diversion of waste to be recycled or composted. Twenty seven firms participated. Results were announced last week, and we won an award for the most innovative strategy to reduce waste! The strategy was to post weekly waste audit results in the kitchen to track and motivate how we were doing throughout the 4 month challenge. Our office maintained an average diversion rate of 75 – 89% throughout the challenge, which is very close the 90% rate that NYC is aiming for by 2030. AIA NYC combined the results of all 27 teams and found that waste going to landfill was reduced by 17,719 lbs monthly, waste diverted to recycling or compost was 11,336 lbs monthly, and the total waste diverted by all firms during the challenge was 138,397 lbs – 69 tons! Read more on waste360.com here.