Becoming Most Sustainable: Practical Advice for the IT Channel
At Techies Go Green, it’s our signatories that are making the biggest difference. One of those signatories, TD SYNNEX, a leading distributor and solutions aggregator for the IT ecosystem, recently published an extremely informative piece giving business within the IT channel practical advice on how to become more sustainable. This was written by TD SYNNEX’s Director of Sustainability, Kevin Wragg and Pete Walker, Embedded IT. Check out the piece below, or you can read the full article over on their website, here.
We need no more reminding of the importance of Sustainability, our daily news covers the citizen protests, and the increased frequency or rare climatic events affecting populations and planned events such as sports. This blog will explore the impact of sustainability on the IT Industry with particular focus on the actions that UK Service Providers can take to improve their own emissions and those in their value chain.
Sustainability within the IT Sector
The IT market is a significant contributor to Global Emissions, laptops and tablets are replaced every few years with the corresponding manufacturing and logistical implications and the water and electricity use of Data Centres is a high focus area by many agencies and governments. Studies have claimed the IT industry to be a bigger Carbon emitter than the airline industry and governments are placing stringent conditions on the Public Cloud providers. The robust response from the large IT Vendors indicates how seriously they are taking this, with huge investments in Solar, Wind and even forward contracts on Nuclear Fusion when it becomes available. Microsoft has committed to carbon negativity, and zero waste by 2030, as well as aiming to remove all historic emissions from the environment by 2050 . AWS has pledged to use 100% renewable energy by 2025. Google is carbon neutral for current operations with a goal to use carbon-free energy in all operations by 2030. All three promise to be water positive by 2030 with Google actually stating a figure of 120%.
It's good to know that the large Vendors have plans and actions in place but what can a Service Provider do to measure and manage their own emissions?
Put a framework in place
We suggest starting with an industry recognised framework for measuring and managing your sustainability targets. The Greenhouse Gas Protocol (GHG) is used by almost all large companies including TD SYNNEX and is a great place to start. GHG breaks down emissions into three focus areas or scopes:
Scope 1: Emissions from sources directly owned or controlled by your business, including burning fuels on-site or in company vehicles.
Scope 2: Indirect emissions are caused when the energy your company buys and uses is produced by your energy suppliers, often electricity, gas etc. Although scope 2 emissions physically occur at the facility where they are generated, they are accounted for in a company’s GHG inventory because they are a result of your company’s energy use.
Scope 3: Emissions are generated by your end to end supply chain and the customers who use your products & services, as well as any other activities necessary to run your business, from staff travel, commuting to waste management.
Set clear targets and communicate them
The next stage will be to agree within your business, what your goals are around sustainability are, this is likely to be a target date for net zero Carbon emissions and a target for water use, it will be mapped against the Framework you have established in the first step. With your goals set you will need to communicate them within the business to ensure that all staff are on-board and ensure that your goals are reflected in your marketing communications, Website etc.
Start to measure and understand your Sustainability position.
Companies initially tended to focus on Scope 1 and 2 exclusively, but it’s now increasingly recognised that Scope 3 should also be included when calculating your company’s carbon footprint, as this group is typically the greatest driver of total emissions. There are 15 upstream and downstream categories within scope 3 and not all will be relevant for your business. You will notice that the UK Government mention both Scope 2 and Scope 3 in the guidance document here. For most organisations scope 3 is usually far higher than that of scopes 1&2 combined, it’s not uncommon for companies to have 80%+ of their emissions within scope 3.
Make changes to reach your goals
We suggest that you put your emissions into 3 buckets
• Bucket 1 – Items you have direct control over
• Bucket 2 – Items you don’t control, but can influence
• Bucket 3 – Items you cannot control or influence but want to monitor.
Once you have don’t this, it helps to draw your attention to what you can and cannot do, focus on low hanging fruit, accepting that some items might take years to fix. Scope 3 emissions are often described as being someone else’s scope 1&2.
Potential Scope 1 Changes:
Energy use within your premises is likely to be a significant component in your emissions and good area to focus on. It is important to understand what the EPC rating is for your office / premises even if leased. UK government legislated in 2023 that commercial buildings that do not have an energy performance certificate (EPC) rating of E or better are no longer able to be traded or leased under the new legislation. These regulations are set to evolve over time, with the minimum EPC rating rising to C in 2027 and B in 2030, so landlords will be under big pressure to improve their commercial office spaces.
Moving your energy supplier to renewable sources could make a significant improvement. There are many schemes from big power companies offering green energy supported by REGOs (renewable energy guarantee of origin) certificates. If you use gas, can this be replaced with electric? if not can biogas be used?
LED lighting uses significantly less power, lasts longer and typically has less maintenance costs as well as better health & safety records, a move from Halogen to LED can have a significant impact on energy consumption and emissions.
If you are able to do so, the installation of Solar Panels along with a move to electric heating and vehicles is likely to make a substantial improvement to your emissions. If you operate a vehicle fleet (cars & vans), consider electrifying the fleet.
What can you do about Scope 3 Emissions?
Scope 3 are the emissions that you have least direct control over, but you can influence or move suppliers to effect change. Items to consider would be any promotional items you use in your Marketing efforts, food waste for your staff or at events, understanding the emissions created by your suppliers and the products that you sell.
A significant area within Scope 3 that you can affect is Category 6 and 7 which cover business travel and employee commuting. Offering staff salary sacrifice to run more efficient company vehicles or offering the Cycle to work scheme can improve emissions in these areas. You may also want to offer incentives for using public transport for business travel and where flights are required, you may want to consider carbon offsetting. A clear way to reduce all travel emission is the use of business productivity solutions to enable hybrid working and online meetings.
If you run marketing events, replacing flyers with digital downloads and managing food waste is a positive step.
Do I have to account for the products I sell?
The wording of category 11 (use of sold product) makes it clear that you have to account for the emissions of the products that you sell. This is probably one of the most controversial categories as it implies that the vendor, distributor, reseller and end user will all account for the same product, often referred to as double accounting. The move to Net Zero by the Vendors mentioned above will certainly make accounting easier for Public Cloud Solutions in future.
How do I verify that my findings are correct ?
Once you have measured your sustainability metrics, you can obtain certification from a number of organisations to confirm your findings. These external verification steps are important for your own piece of mind and to publish externally as your customers are likely to be more reassured by an independent verification than your own claims.
Summary
With the EU Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) coming into effect next year, the focus on this area will increase for larger companies with the SME sector inevitably following suit. A coherent strategy around Sustainability is therefore essential. We understand this can be a daunting prospect and hope that following the steps in this guide and using the resources we have Linked to should make the journey a little easier.
The full version of this blog was originally written for and published on the TD SYNNEX website. You can view the full article here: https://trustedadvisor.tdsynnex.co.uk/articles/becoming-more-sustainable-practical-advice-for-the-it-channel/
TD SYNNEX | At TD SYNNEX, our purpose is to empower our partners to achieve great outcomes with technology. We are passionate about bringing compelling technology products, services, and solutions to the world and supporting our partners with exceptional service, insight, and world-class execution. We are your Trusted Advisor.
Kevin Wragg, Director of Sustainability, TD SYNNEX | Kevin has over 35 years of IT distribution. He initially joined First Software (which later became TD SYNNEX in 2021) in 1988 and has held several positions in both sales, product marketing, and IT in both the UK, Europe, and United States of America. More recently he was the Endpoint Solutions Operations director for 8 years where he spent a significant part of his time driving operational improvement, large customer integration & business optimisation in its successful retail business. In 2022 Kevin accepted a newly created position and became Director of Sustainability for UK&I and is responsible for leading the company’s net zero carbon sustainability strategy.
Pete Walker, Embedded IT | Pete has worked in the IT Industry for over 35 years. Initially as a technical programmer and consultant before moving into sales and management. Half this time has been spent working for three large IT vendors, the other half working for a global distributor and several smaller Managed Service Providers. Pete joined Embedded IT over 5 years ago to develop and deliver advice and solutions for the thousands of IT service providers servicing the UK SMB market
Joining Techies Go Green.
If you want to learn more about sustainability 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. Membership is open to companies within the UK and Ireland. We would love to have you join and to help you in your journey towards sustainability and decarbonisation.