For those familiar with Palantir, you are probably aware that operating in an environmentally friendly way has always been one of our top priorities.  What you may not know is of the other efforts we make behind the scenes to make sure that we're not just leaving a small impact on the planet, but also leaving a big impact on some of the people around us.  And with a new position in the Palantir offices, that impact promises to only get bigger.

I'd like to introduce myself as Dana DeMet, Palantir's new Office Manager/Administrator. A few months ago, Palantir decided to add the position to its ever-expanding team of developers, designers, and managers. With a constant eye on quality and sustainability, Palantir's vision for the position is for it to streamline a wide-range of office operations, logistics, and employee benefits and policies. By adding the position, Palantir's leaders and employees can focus their energies on producing the highest-quality work and development that has always been the standard for the company. I am excited to join such an amazing and eclectic team of people and look forward to meeting the many people Palantir does business with daily.

In my new position, one of my main focuses has been on making sure that as our company grows, we do not significantly increase the environmental impact that our daily operations leaves on the planet. Within the first weeks of coming to Palantir, I conducted an office-wide sweep to clean out old office supplies, furniture, and documentation. Rather than simply junk many of the things I found, a more environmentally and socially responsible approach was taken.

• Unused office chairs were donated to local teachers working with Teach for America in Chicago. As a TFA alum, I know firsthand some of the supply shortages many of our nation's under-funded schools deal with. Palantir was more than happy to help ease at least one small trouble in a teacher's day as well as to avoid adding unnecessary waste to already-full landfills.
• Old PCs and computer hardware had their hard drives removed (for client security) and then donated to Free Geek Chicago This not-for-profit organization recycles old computers and hardware to provide low- and no-cost functioning computers and web-access for those who couldn't normally afford it.
• Boxes of old floppy disks, CDs, zip drives, and hard drives will be taken to the Shred Authority, a local, independently-owned data-destruction service who will shred everything down to less than 1/8" and then recycle the waste. The company has also recently decreased its own carbon footprint by 33% when it purchased new energy-efficient mobile shredding trucks - the first of their kind in the Chicagoland area.
• For the third year in a row, Palantir teamed with TerraPass to purchase carbon offsets for all of its operations since April 2009. This year, Palantir offset 92 metric tons of CO2, a whopping 11 tons less than the year before it, and 3 tons less than 2008. Even as our company grows, our focus on efficiency and responsibility has had a great impact on the footprint we leave behind.
• We will also be instituting a new office system for destroying and recycling all paper products in the office. We already reduce our minimal paper consumption by printing all internal documents on the back of used paper, but we are now addressing what happens when both sides have been used. Palantir will store all paper in the office and then team with 2020 Recycling to shred and recycle 100% of paper waste - maintaining company and client security as well as reducing our environmental impact.

These pursuits are admirable in their own right of eco-friendliness, but that's often not the biggest takeaway when you operate in this manner. It is the people that you meet and affect along the way that seem to stick with you. Whether it's the volunteers in the basement at FreeGeek, the teacher with a new chair, or the exuberant owner of the Shred Authority, we all benefit from some fun, easy, and conscientious decisions each of us can make in our daily lives.