Another new property at emsys? Santa Claus has thought of something very special this year.

As every year, he presented us with a wonderful table of gifts, but this time limited to Corona-compliant goodies. In addition, our most direct neighbors were also thought of: Santa Claus gave us a bird feeder complete with grains, which we will place in the garden in front of the canteen. After all, we installed a large number of bird feeders on the building last spring, and it would be a shame not to get our subtenants through the winter.

While the birdies have already been given presents, our colleagues don't need to complain. Instead of a Christmas party, we are having a Secret Santa this year and the first batch of presents is already under the tree.

The oaks are losing their leaves. According to forester Dirksen, now is the optimal time for the second planting attempt of our future emsys forest. This had gone wrong the first time, last spring, because of drought. Let's see if the winter brings us more luck...

Now the all-terrain planting machine, a mini caterpillar, cuts the turf a second time and presses the planting gap apart with its plow tip. Once again, the young oak saplings are inserted and two clamping wheels press the gap closed again. Careful finishing work is also done this time by the feet of the third planting helper.

In the rows of trees are planted alternately three oaks and one hornbeam. The alkaline hornbeams compensate for the acidity of the oaks and provide good humus soil, which also pleases insects. In addition, the low hornbeams with strong leaves reduce the incidence of light and thus the growth of grass, with which the oaks compete for soil water.

Normally, the marsh or clay soil present here is ideal for planting. The former seabed is rich in nutrients, has a high lime content and stores a lot of moisture. But what is normal in times of climate change? Let's hope that today's drizzle, which favors planting, is a humid harbinger for "our" forest and that we can soon reduce our carbon footprint.

Admittedly: Even with the luxury of a comfortable home office, the last twelve months can hardly be called a bed of roses at the moment. But we don't care, because emsys celebrates the festivities as they fall - and now we've been in our own building for a year.

Zwar sind, nach eigenem Ermessen, noch nicht alle Kollegen wieder regelmäßig im Haus, aber die Anwesenden konnten sich zum Jahrestag über ein Stück Geburtstagstorte freuen. Happy Einzugstag, emsys-Büros!

It's no big secret that we're working toward a sustainable future. Many aspects of this goal are united in the Kidical Mass alliance, which works to make cities bike-friendly for kids (and everyone else).

On World Children's Day, 20.09., a children's bicycle demonstration took place for the first time in Oldenburg, to which 700 cyclists, 330 of them children, turned up. Many emsys colleagues participated and we are happy to have supported the demonstration.

The signed petition with demands for safe bike lanes, a sensible school bike lane network and speed limits was delivered to the mayor on Sunday. The local broadcaster oeins has published a report on it, which can be viewed on YouTube. More info on the campaign, which is to be repeated in March 2021, is available at verkehrswandel.de.

Since the beginning of 2018, we have been the proud owners of 1.7 hectares of grassland in the Wesermarsch region of Schweiburg/Rönnelmoor. The background for the purchase was the desire to reforest this area as compensation for CO2 emissions caused by us. After the application was submitted, the planting finally started on March 26, 2020.

This was preceded by the construction of a fence to protect against deer and the mulching of the area in preparation for the planting machine. The machine planted a total of 5,350 English oaks, 1,800 hornbeams and white beeches, 775 red alders, and 125 hazelnut, snowball, and hawthorn bushes each in the planting gap of approximately 40 cm depth.

We were looking forward to organizing our first barbecue at the edge of the 8,425 little trees, of course - how could it be otherwise - with a few wind turbines as a familiar backdrop on the neighboring property. For this first barbecue next to new green trees, however, climate change is unfortunately throwing a spanner in the works.

Because at the beginning of June we had to realize that a large part of the plants had dried up. "I have never experienced such a dried-out, freshly planted tree population in the Wesermarsch," says a disappointed forester Dirksen, surveying the tree seedlings, which are about one meter high. The sobering conclusion: the majority of the area will have to be replanted in the fall. At least Corona will hopefully no longer stand in our way, so that some of us will probably be able to attend the planting procedure next time.

As far as our technology is concerned, we have long since taken advantage of decentralization. In the current situation, however, we are suddenly opening up a large number of locations: emsys is in the home office.

In fact, the switch to a home office was very easy for most colleagues. Over the past few years, many colleagues had already set up access points from home so that they could flexibly stay at home for a day. Now the rest of the workforce has followed suit. A few input or output devices were taken along and current work documents were backed up, if they were not available digitally anyway, and our beautiful new office building was already deserted.

The settling-in period was surprisingly calm, as the home office veterans were able to provide assistance with the most common questions. Chat programs and video telephony, which we had also used before – albeit to a much lesser extent – are used for communication as needed. Colleagues who don't have the necessary peace and quiet at home are recently working in an individual office in the company building. Every few Fridays, a non-topic video chat group takes care of socializing.

By and large, the emsys folk have gotten used to the new situation quite quickly. Despite adhering to the no-contact policy, our operations run almost normally. Fortunately, we don't have a Covid 19 case so far and hopefully are able to weather the crisis just fine. Stay healthy!

One of our favorite trade fairs is just around the corner again: E-world will take place from 11.02. to 13.02.2020 in Essen! For our stand visitors, we are focusing on the topic of Redispatch 2.0 this year, but we are also particularly looking forward to the Career Forum on 13.02. – will we meet you there?

The recruiting event wants to bring students and graduates together with companies and of course we are happy to participate. One of our managing directors, Matthias Lange, will give a presentation about emsys and afterwards we will be available for questions and discussions.

The career forum will take place on February 13 from 09:30 to 14:30 in exhibition hall 4. Registration is free for students. You can find an insight into our current vacancies under Jobs. We would be very happy to meet you in Essen!

We really have a hard time. Our cooks bake the most delicious desserts, but no one dares to use the fancy portafilter coffee machine. In the meantime, however, we have increased the kitchen staff and were finally able to appoint a colleague as a barista.

Since then, the silver machine purrs three times a week at lunchtime and spoils us with all kinds of coffee specialties, which are lovingly served. After fulfilling our caffeine-addicted desires, we start the second half of the day with renewed vigor.

All of a sudden, the year is already over. We wish all readers a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Moving house is one of those things. Despite circulars and forwarding requests, you always have to worry that someone might not have noticed the change of address. But the anxiety has now come to an end: Santa Claus has found us at the new location.

No wonder, after all, his colleagues had diligently placed shoes and cookies in the foyer the night before – how could he resist? Despite the larger area, he did a great job again. A trail of nuts led to a table where he had set up all sorts of sweets, stollen, clementines and tea for us. Presumably, walnuts (and well stuffed employees) will be rolling through the hallways for days to come.

This year, we are once again taking the opportunity to help shape the future in other ways: We are sponsoring the Children's Book Fair in Oldenburg for the seventh time.

This year, the theme is "Welcome! KIBUM meets Great Britain" under the patronage of book illustrator Tony Ross. In the fine English way, children's books by British authors will be read aloud and staged bilingually. KIBUM 2019 will take place from November 09 to 19 at the PFL Oldenburg. The program and more info are available  here – have fun!

Long before the move, it was already clear that we employees also wanted to contribute something to our new building. In this way, we were able to thank our bosses for the fact that they had not only restricted themselves to practical aspects in months of painstaking work, but above all had a building built for us to feel good in. From the beginning it was clear that we were collecting for a tree. The choice of species, on the other hand, was influenced by all sorts of criteria until the tree committee finally decided on a copper rock pear.

In fact, all colleagues were even able to keep the secret almost in its entirety from our bosses until the deadline, so they received a real surprise from us. Our new 5m tall garden resident was delivered yesterday and ceremoniously installed in front of the building. Now we are looking forward to the first flowering of the pear in April.