A sustainable ICT should be something obvious in every company. However, many companies are still struggling with their sustainability goals. This is actually strange, cause having a sustainable ICT for your company is really easy. Just follow the tips below.
Tips sustainable ICT company
How to make your company more environmental friendly? Many companies struggle with this. At home we seem to be perfectly able to adjust ourselves to sustainable solutions or alternatives. However, at work we seem to find it harder to fully practise sustainable alternatives.
Our answer: Start with ICT! But don’t worry. These easy tips below will help you out. We start with the most polluting department of most companies: the ICT department. ICT is a big energy consumer and a ruthless user of resources. That goes completely against our sustainability goals. So we need to make some simple changes in our ICT departments.
Don’t be afraid. We can have our cake and eat it too. Having a more sustainable ICT department doesn’t mean it has to negatively affect its work results.
ICT as cost saving
Additionally, several sustainable ICT tips happen to also be cost saving measurements. Therefor they fit in every company’s longing for profit and ways to save costs.
Tech companies seem to be the most progressive into finding ways to be more environmental friendly, or at least less environmental unfriendly. They seem to be very able to use their knowledge and experience into making their business more sustainable. How do they do it?
Tips sustainable ICT
We will give you some easy tips.
1: Paperless business operations
Although our lives are more digitalized then ever before, the paperless office is still not widely applied. This is a bit strange. Offices have kilometres of documents, files, paperwork, memo’s and hand-outs. Everything is printed, shared and saved on paper. But sharing it digitally sounds way more efficient and convenient.
We are always digitally accessible, either by smartphone, tablet, laptop or computer. Therefor we always have a possibility to open a file on a screen.
Files printed on paper aren’t better than digital files. Digitally you can also add remarks, highlight, make changes, etc. Paperwork simply doesn’t have any advantage anymore. Check out our tips for handy Chrome extensions.
Actually, the digital world has made paperwork obsolete. Digital files can be shared, saved and archived way better than paper files. Documents can be easily shared, accessed and adjusted digitally by using cloud storage solutions.
This makes the office in fact way more efficient. Paperwork can become chaotic and cluttered.
- What is the most recent version?
- Did you receive the memo?
- I have been searching for 20 minutes, but can’t find the file on my desk.
- I can’t read your writing.
Not to mention the huge pile of unused paperwork.
These things just work way better and more efficiently when uploaded, shared and saved digitally.
Challenge: Calculate how much kilo of paper is being used in your office on a monthly basis, and how much is being spend on paper. Also calculate how much kilo of paper ends up in the garbage on a monthly basis, as we assume you recycle paper separately. This challenge will give you a good picture of the shocking positive results of going paperless.
Interested in more simple solutions? Check out our blog on the best Chrome extensions that make your online activities more easy and sustainable.
2: Have sustainable suppliers
As a company you can demand certain requirements from your suppliers. Remember that the level of sustainability of your suppliers and partners have an effect on the company’s reputation.
An example. In 2011 Apple got in trouble when environmental activists stated the new Chinese supplier dumped waste illegally, polluting nature. Ever since, Apple has encouraged its suppliers and partners to be more environmental friendly and to responsibly use raw materials and resources.
This is definitely an important issue to consider. Do only look at your own production process, but also ensure the sustainability of your partners and suppliers.
3: Recycle
Recycling is one of the ground rules of a sustainable lifestyle, and also fits perfectly in a more sustainable ICT.
At the office we don’t seem to recycle as much as at home. At the office we throw away things effortlessly when they are not usable anymore. This is a strange habit.
For example, office pens. They are being thrown away when empty. How many pens are being used in your office on a monthly basis? Look for a way to not throw away a pen, but refill it.
Also ICT objects are being thrown away to easily when they do not meet our high standards anymore. It is ok to renew and prefer technological advanced stuff. However, in a more sustainable ICT department you could choose to sell or donate these items to be reused as second hand items.
As an ICT department: look into the possibilities to purchase refurbished products. Refurbished ICT items might still have a great quality, be cheaper and are way more environmental friendly.
And also in a more simpler way, recycling can be easily applied in the company. Like for example recycle bins spread throughout the office or toilet paper made from recycled paper.
As you can see: different options for recycling to have a more sustainable ICT and a more sustainable company.
4: Revise your energy consumption
In most companies, the ICT department has one of the highest energy consumptions. How sustainable is this energy consumption?
Trying to save energy is a great way to save money. This can be done with simple steps.
- Replace old, high energy consuming devices.
- Add devices with a low energy consumption rate, preferable A+++.
- Switch of lights when there is no one there.
- Switch to LED lights.
- Switch of computers and machines when not in use.
Additionally, of course: Use green energy. It’s quite easy to switch towards a green energy supplier. Or to install solar panels on the roof, to directly profit from green energy from the sun.
5: Change to a green host
You are thinking about efforts towards a more sustainable ICT department. However, many hosting companies have already made improvements towards a more sustainable production process.
Hosting companies are often data centres that digitally storage all the data of companies. These data centres happen to produce fumes that are all but good for the environment. They are actually more polluting than we assume. Switching towards a paperless company includes demanding more data storage. Try to limit the effect of more data storage on the environment by contracting an environmental friendly host, like, for example, Capgemini.
Read more about environmental friendly data centres.