Atterbury Europe and its partners are embracing the spirit of sustainability, and in Romania have built on a “Tis the season to be ECO” campaign in which they dedicated the festive season to environmental responsibility. Asset manager Vlad Valcea tells us more.

How did the paper project start?

We kicked it off in September last year, when 10 ton of paper was collected – we had asked our Iulius customers and the people of Iasi to bring us their waste paper. This was then used in a massive paper recycling project in which Christmas decorations were made and then used to decorate Iulius Mall Suceava, Iulius Mall Cluj and Iulius Town Timișoara mixed-use project for the festive season. It was such a success that we decided to expand it beyond Christmas and to include our malls in other cities.

How was that achieved?

We launched our “Tis the season to be ECO” campaign with the aim to recycle paper and make Easter decorations for display in our various assets. We called on shoppers in Iulius Town Timișoara to be the “paper goblins” and collect and donate paper for the project, with the message that we should all take care of the environment we live in and be more sustainable. People really embraced the concept and before Christmas almost two tons of paper was recycled at Iulius Town Timișoara. That pulp is being used to make decorations for the upcoming Easter holidays.

Also, in December the Iulius shopping malls in Suceava, Cluj-Napoca, and Timișoara accommodated creative recycling workshops for children, because being eco-friendly is a responsibility that is taught early on. Children learnt that the life cycle of a plastic bottle, a piece of packaging or a sheet of paper is not over once you wrote in a notebook or opened a present, but that these can be transformed into small Christmas decorations.

The Christmas decorations were glorious. Who were the creative brains making them, and are the same people making the Easter decorations?

The decorations were made by a specialized company, based on an idea conceptualised with the Iulius team.

Is there a theme for Easter?

It is work in progress. Again, sustainability is the creative force of the Easter campaign, and the decorations will certainly not only be fun, but also eco-friendly and will send a strong message to our customers.

Are there more “green” projects in the pipeline for Romania?

Being environmentally conscious is on our priority list with all our projects, especially new builds. Our UBC 0 office building in Iulius Town Timișoara has just received Platinum LEED certification (the maximum level of LEED certification), a standard developed by the US Green Building Council that measures the implementation of sustainability criteria. As an example, to encourage people to come to work using alternative, greener transport, the building has showers and changing rooms for cyclists, and also spaces dedicated to parking bicycles and charging stations for electric cars.

Paper Recycling Facts*

  • Paper can be recycled up to six times.
  • Recycling paper helps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change.
  • It takes 70% less energy and water to recycle paper than to create new paper from trees.
  • For every ton of recycled paper, the wood of 12 trees is saved.
  • If one person were to recycle all the paper they use in a year, it would be equivalent to saving one whole tree.
  • If you recycled eight breakfast cereal boxes, you’d have enough paper to make a book.

*From Stopbasura.com and shredit.co.uk