System Associates runner up in Environmental Sustainability Award
November 20th, 2008
System Associates is the runner up in this year's Environmental Sustainability Award in the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead’s Community and Business Excellence Awards for 2008.
The Award was given for the range of environmental initiatives undertaken by System Associates not only reducing the environmental impact of our business but also reducing the impact of our clients’ businesses.
Environmental Management Programme
Our environmental management programme has been recognised as achieving the ISO14001 standard, providing an ongoing programme which defines all areas in which we can make an environmental improvement. This includes measured initiatives focussed on waste and power reduction, recycling and ethical disposal of equipment.
Carbon Offsetting
System Associates has offset all of its carbon emissions (from energy used by our office and staff commuting) by working with a carbon offsetting company. We have calculated our ‘carbon footprint’ for the running of our office and our staff's daily commute and then offset this by making a financial investment to Climate Care, who use that money on projects which can help reduce carbon emissions around the world.
This provides us with an intermediate solution as we strive to further reduce our emissions.
Ethical Policy
The company operates a strong ethical policy, which not only includes the usual human rights and diversity issues, but also ensures that we only compete for projects that have a low carbon impact.
Campaigning in the industry
System Associates is alarmed at the rate in which software applications are consuming power in the race to provide bigger and better systems, which the average organisation does not require. As such we have been campaigning for more recognition of the environmental impact of IT.
We estimate that of the 50 million websites worldwide, only a third (34%) share a server. 50% have a single server to host a website, operating at one fifth of their capacity, 15% have between 3 and 30 servers and 1% has 30 servers or more.
We believe that too many organisations over specify; especially large organisations and government departments, who are afraid of public recrimination should there not be enough capacity.
We believe that it is our responsibility to work together with our customers to reduce carbon emissions and provide more environmentally friendly solutions and to explain the consequences of decisions made about IT in a wider, environmental context.
Many of System Associates’ projects have won awards for innovation and System Associates has won two previous awards in the Windsor and Maidenhead Community and Business Excellence Awards. In 2005, System Associates won Small Business of the Year and last year we won the Best Use of Technology.
Related links
For more information on the Environmental Sustainability Award, please visit the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead Community and Business Excellence Awards website.