As part of our B Corp certification, we have amended our shareholder agreement. This now obliges the managing directors to weigh up the impact of their actions on the shareholders, employees and suppliers, customers, the common good and the environment. This applies to both short-term and long-term actions. This means that the focus is no longer purely on profit, but on the common good of all members of society.

The Nerd Republic is not limited to one workplace. We promote mobile working, especially as digitalization offers numerous opportunities in this area. We combine this with trust-based working hours and can therefore meet personal needs. We want to improve working conditions, promote work-life balance and strengthen employees’ autonomy.

We have decided not to impose any restrictions on vacation times. All employees have the freedom to go on vacation as long and as often as they need to. It may seem surprising, but grown-up people are actually able to balance their needs and the demands of work. Our philosophy is that a respectful approach to the individual needs and life situations of our employees not only contributes to their satisfaction, but also increases productivity and commitment to the company in the long term.

We are organized decentrally, but our customers are spread all over Germany. We travel to customer appointments by public transport. We don’t use cars, and we don’t fly within Germany. As a matter of principle, we offset the CO2 emissions caused by our travels with renewable energy. This means that we don’t just pay the offset to be neutral, we offset twice the amount.

Offsetting as a direction towards climate neutrality is a great start, but should not be the only measure. We are trying to reduce or, where possible, completely eliminate greenhouse gas emissions. CO2 does not care where it is offset. However, we believe that promoting projects on the other side of the world as cheaply as possible has something of the modern indulgence trade about it. What cannot (yet) be reduced and eliminated is compensated twice by us in a regenerative way. We are already offsetting our trips with renewable energy. In the next step, we want to offset all of the remaining emissions.

We don’t get caught up in complicated bonus payments and annual targets, which basically lead to destructive actions. Instead, we form three pots: 1) Growth of the Nerd Republic, 2) Bonuses to employees and 3) Social projects. Every six months, we determine the percentage distribution in the pots. After each quarter, the profits are distributed to the pots accordingly. Everyone participates equally in the employee bonus. In addition, everyone can present social projects from their personal environment for support.