By working together, we can achieve impressive goals in sustainability in IT. Leaders and partners have the opportunity to be changemakers in the fight to protect the climate, encouraging other businesses and organisations to follow suit and help set a global environmental standard for everyone working in IT.
If we all play our part we can bring about positive and meaningful change.
The Transputec team joined Techies Go Green as a signatory in 2021, and with the support of Techies Go Green, we embarked on our sustainability in IT programme shortly after. Here are some of our insights and tips on how we have moved towards a more sustainable culture at Transputec, and where we’re focusing our efforts as we move to the next level:
Environmental Management Processes
We are ISO 14001 accredited, with an active and enthusiastic Environmental Management Systems (EMS) committee in place. Gaining accreditation has helped our team implement a framework for measuring and monitoring our environmental impact. Having an engaged committee makes all the difference: passionate advocates of sustainable business practices helps drive engagement with the business’s goals and targets.
Of course, setting goals and targets is crucial. We found that the clearer and more succinct the targets, the better. These targets are communicated to and agreed by the Board, who are invested in the business’s environmental efforts. Some examples of clear and actionable goals are: committing to reducing a business’s annual energy consumption, or ensuring all packaging is made from recycled materials.
To help measure and monitor our goals, we’ve invested in a carbon calculator supplied by Climate Essentials. Now we can manage and report our environmental management goals centrally, share them between teams and with senior stakeholders, and closely track our progress of our sustainability in IT.
Switching to Renewable Energy for Sustainability in IT
All too often the most obvious and simple steps are overlooked in favour of blue-sky targets, but small changes really can have a big impact. At Transputec, we made a commitment to renewable energy, switching our electricity sources to a green option in addition to switching existing fluorescent, energy-heavy lights to LEDs.
In taking these smaller steps, we’ve now been able to think bigger – and recently we’ve installed 70 solar panels to generate our own power. This is phase one of our project and is a significant step in our sustainability in IT journey. By creating energy independence for Transputec, we’re relying less on non-renewable resources and we’re creating a long-term, stable energy guarantee for the company and its future operations.
The environmental benefits are similarly significant: each year, the panels reduce our CO2 output by 7.5 tonnes and contribute to over a quarter of our power consumption. And we are told that over the course of the panels’ lifetimes, the environmental upswing equals 156 long-haul flights avoided or 1404 trees planted. Now that’s something we are proud of as part of our sustainability in IT.
Rethinking Travel
Business travel can be a big problem for businesses. The environmental impact of frequent flying is huge, so we’ve also reduced flying and business travel across the board. Another significant step in our sustainability in IT.
We’ve worked closely with employees to track their vehicle mileage when coming to work, looking for potential opportunities to reduce this. By tracking this personal mileage closely, we can set a baseline figure which we can compare our progress against year-on-year.
Our employees are now taking on initiatives themselves, with four of our employees now carpooling, and saving on 60 miles per round trip to the office making a small but welcome reduction in our overall emissions.
Engagement and Immersion
To truly become a sustainable workplace, there has to be buy-in from everyone at every level of the business. Engagement with the business’s core environmental goals and strategy is key, and makes the shift to a greener working culture much smoother. Thanks to our commitment to environmental business, Transputec is a member of our local Better Futures programme, where we can network with other small- and medium-sized green enterprises. We’re also in the process of applying to the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi).
Everyone at Transputec is keen to get involved with our sustainability in IT and community initiatives. We keep up the momentum by engaging in several key environmental days every year, whether that’s participating in Earth Hour or promoting Meat Free Mondays. As a business, we recently took part in Keeping Britain Tidy by cleaning up a local canal.
What all these steps and successes show is that any and every business can adopt more environmentally-aware practices. Starting out small, with actionable changes and fostering a greener culture in the workplace, can eventually lead to bigger commitments and projects. It’s up to all of us, now, to work towards a future for businesses that champions sustainability in IT and take climate action seriously.
To learn more on how Transputec can be your Trusted sustainable IT partner and support your technology advancements Contact us here.
If you want to learn more about sustainability in IT and what your company can do to become more sustainable, consider joining Techies Go Green. Techies Go Green is a movement dedicated to decarbonising IT and tech-oriented companies through collaborating and sharing knowledge.
