Our year of giving back

First and foremost, our involvement in the Drupal community is at the core of our team’s professional focus, whether it be writing code or involvement with community events. This has included some of the following initiatives:

• Our development team are provided with up to 20% of their working hours to contribute code to the Drupal project. This has resulted in PreviousNext being listed as the third most prolific Drupal 8 contributor globally, giving team a huge head start for when the new version of Drupal is released in 2015.
• We actively encourage and fund our team to share their expertise at Drupal conferences around the world, and in the past year have had people as far afield as Amsterdam, Taipei, Karachi, Austin, Canberra, Singapore, Melbourne and Los Angeles, including:
  • Jason Coghlan on Self Organising Teams
  • Kim Pepper and Boris Gordon on What’s coming in Drupal 8 
  • Lee Rowlands on Contributing to Drupal Core
  • Pamela Barone on Selling Agile
  • Jibran Ijaz on Views Style Plugins
  • John Albin on Style Guide Driven Development
• Financially supporting Drupal community events, such as DrupalGov Canberra, DrupalSouth Melbourne and buying the pizza for the DrupalMeetup Sydney, along with contributing to the Drupal 8 Accelerate program. This included Nick Schuch travelling to Portland, Oregon, for the Drupal CI Sprint.
• Sponsoring Donna Benjamin’s travel to Drupal Association board meetings throughout 2014 and her broader role in the Australian Drupal Community, including co-organising DrupalSouth Melbourne. 

Our commitment to the environment remains as strong as ever, especially given the recent lack of political attention to serious environmental issues in Australia. We believe very strongly in the role of private enterprise in driving environmentally responsible initiatives, and have strived to play our own role in this.

This has included installing 5 Kilowatts of solar panels in our Sydney head office, offsetting 100% of our own requirements and generating 10 times back to the grid than we use. We also have a policy of using 100% Greenpower in all of our other rented offices around the country, and clear environmental guidelines for everything from travel, to purchasing office supplies, to waste management. 

We’ve also continued our involvement with the global network, 1% For The Planet, where likeminded companies commit 1% of their total revenue to supporting environmental causes. Our financial commitment runs deep, and this year our support has been directed to the following non-profit organisations based on the PreviousNext team’s feedback:

Australian Conservation Foundation: One of Australia’s longest running environmental advocacy organisations, with a strong track record in critical campaign victories, ACF is one of PreviousNext’s original clients, who we’re proud to support with in-kind services. 

OceanWatch: Works in partnership with the seafood industry to advance sustainability of ocean habitats and fishing technologies.

Waves For Water: Founded by surfers with a mission to provide clean drinking water to people in need, W4W sprung into action with a campaign to provide emergency water supplies following the earthquake in Nepal.

It’s Time: Providing renewable energy to remote schools in the South Pacific with the dual aim of enhancing the environment and improving education opportunities. 

Lock the Gate: Coal Seam Gas is threatening significant parts of Australia’s productive farmland and irrevocably affecting the natural landscape and water resources, and running roughshod over community sentiment. Lock The Gate is a grassroots organisation that brings together more than 160 local action groups. 

OzHarvest: One of the most effective sustainable social programs in Australia, OzHarvest recovers 160 tonnes of food per month that would otherwise go to waste, providing more than 480,000 meals to people in need. 

Surfrider Foundation: The local branch of the global organisation focused on protecting beaches from overdevelopment and environmental impacts, with a strong campaign to reduce the impact of plastics on the ocean.

GreenFleet: Australia’s first carbon offset provider, PreviousNext contributes to the 8.4 million trees Greenfleet has planted since 1997, helping to re-forest areas that had previously been affected by land clearing. 

We’re looking forward to being able to contribute in similar ways in the coming year!