• by Douglas Quenqua , April 15, 2008

You've probably seen the animated video from Avenue A | Razorfish bemoaning the plight of the endangered "Wild Snowman." The brief clip is presented as a tongue-in-cheek nature PSA. Why an interactive advertising shop had created and distributed the video, however, was anyone's guess.

Turns out that "snowman" is just the tip of the crumbling iceberg. In September, the agency, a unit of Microsoft's newly acquired aQuantive, launched an internal group called the "Green Team," which is tasked with finding ways to make the office more environmentally friendly. So far, that has meant reducing paper use, switching to recycled products and even publishing a monthly newsletter offering employees tips on saving energy at home.

"It started out as a few of us in the office saying, 'Wouldn't it be nice to use less paper?' " says senior developer Aidrian O'Connor, "And before long we had the support of the higher-ups to go as far as we could with this."

"Snowman," which took a team of six, led by creative director David Estis, about five weeks to complete, was the group's first public effort, but it won't be their last. The next bright idea? Says O'Connor: "We're thinking about handing out compact fluorescent light bulbs." Ouch.