Following the UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties 2021 (COP26), the headlines in the news are highlighting how much transformation the world needs to go through to help with climate change.
At Link ICT we have always tried to ensure we operate ethically by considering the impact our business activities will have on the environment and how we can reduce our carbon footprint as a business.
We have consistently tried to reduce our CO2 impact and our most recent action to decrease our CO2 levels has been to purchase a new electric pool car.
Our lovely new electric car has created a real buzz around the office and our environmentally conscious team of IT technicians are always keen to drive it to get to their customer and client locations.
But this latest change is not our only commitment to the environment. Here are some other ways we have taken steps to reduce our carbon emissions:
- As well as our new pool car, we have been using electric vehicles for around 7 years and our very own Director, Mark Fryers has been using his for 7 years.
- Our mileage policy encourages our staff to invest in electric vehicles (EVs) for work journeys as we offer higher mileage allowance payments as an incentive. As a company, we do over 10,000 miles a month and around 70% of these are within electric vehicles. Also, out of our 11 employees, a third of these own an EV, and those who do not, have access to our pool EV which we encourage the use of.
- We try to be a paperless office that eliminates the use of paper and therefore reduces our wastage. As an IT company, we like to utilise the benefits of the Cloud to store data, ensure security and backup securely.
- We also like to group our purchasing orders to have a specific delivery day to minimise the number of deliveries to our office, reducing the couriers’ mileage too.
- As IT specialists, we encourage our customers to replace and repair their existing equipment as refurbishing helps to make your devices last longer rather than purchasing more equipment.
- We also help our customers to arrange the correct disposable of their end-of-life IT equipment, which is often recycled and redeployed.
- At our office in Derby, we take steps to recycle in the office. From recycling our coffee pods to purchasing recycled material bin bags. We want to ensure even our smaller acts are still making a difference.
- We source our Link ICT office electricity from a renewable energy-only supplier that uses wind, solar and hydro as their renewable sources.
- We use an electric heating system instead of gas to help reduce our use of gas to zero.
As climate change and reducing your carbon footprint as individuals becomes essential for our future, efforts from businesses can help to make that small but significant difference to our world.
Find out more about the Climate Change Conference 2021 and we hope your organisation can make productive and positive changes to influence others too!