Converge receives a prestigious International CSR World Leader Award

On Monday 17th November, Converge’s Managing Director, Tim Westbrook, attended London’s Houses of Parliament to accept an award as CSR World Leader for Environmental Best Practice at the International Green Apple Awards, which aims to find the greenest individuals, companies, councils and communities.

The awards are organised by The Green Organisation - an international, independent, non-political, non-profit environment group dedicated to recognising, rewarding and promoting environmental best practice around the world. The Green Apple Awards are supported by the Environment Agency, the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health, the Chartered Institution for Waste Management, REHIS and other independent bodies.

Winning the title of World Leader signifies that Converge is a company that not only meets high CSR standards but is setting benchmarks for others to follow.

The judges commented: 

“The Converge values have always embraced CSR, their innovation into providing a circular IT solution was ground-breaking over 10 years ago, and they have continued to develop and improve these offerings. CSR is the glue that holds Converge together and they are all working to make that stronger.”

As a result of this Green Apple Award success, Converge has been invited to have our winning paper published in The Green Book, the leading international work of reference on environmental best practice, so that others around the world can learn from our achievement.

This accolade is reserved for businesses that demonstrate:

Sustainable Impact:

This is about initiatives that reduce environmental footprints, promote renewable energy, and champion circular economy principles. Examples of our work in this area include:

• Recycling or refurbishing over 2.7 million unwanted IT devices in our in-house, zero-waste-to-landfill facility.
• Preventing almost 190k tonnes of CO2 emissions to date through our IT recycling efforts.
• Running a global award-winning IT refurbishment business, Stone Refurb.
• Switching to renewable energy, including solar, at our HQ and Bathgate sites.

Community Engagement:

Awarded to businesses with programs that uplift local and global communities through education, health, and social equity. At Converge, we:

• Provide 3 days of paid volunteering leave to our employees who have used the time to help communities locally and nationally in myriad different ways.
• Promote careers in technology to young people, for example, opening doors with 41 apprenticeships to date.
• Ensure all employees receive ongoing training, including over 10,500 hours related to health, safety, and well-being alone.
• Work with external partners such as Thriiver to make technologies accessible to all, especially groups who face additional barriers.

Workplace Responsibility:

Our commitment to diversity, inclusion, employee wellbeing, and ethical labour practices has included:

• Achieving accreditations, including being a Disability Confident Employer, a Foster Friendly Employer and becoming a signatory to the Care Leaver Covenant. All focused on opening doors for groups facing unfair disadvantage.
• Becoming a Real Living Wage employer alongside working to raise awareness on the issue of modern slavery amongst employees and suppliers.
• Supporting employees' wellbeing in and out of work by example, providing free, fast access to GP and other healthcare professionals, financial advice and much more with the Help@Hand app.

Corporate Governance & Transparency:

This is about demonstrating high standards of integrity, accountability, and ethical leadership. This means that wherever possible, we measure our performance across a whole range of environmental, social and governance focus areas. For example:

• We report on well over 100 measures from training hours conducted to CO2 emission reductions to measure the outputs of our work.
• We provide customers who use our recycling and IT refurbishment services with bespoke social value reporting, which they can share with their stakeholders.
• We run regular ‘Talk to Tim’ sessions where our employees get to talk to our MD about what we’re doing well and what we need to improve on as a business.

After a rigorous evaluation of measurable outcomes, innovation, and long-term impact on society and the environment, we join organisations including Microsoft, Nestle, Starbucks and Toyota as an International CSR Excellence Award winner. This is well-deserved recognition for everyone at Converge who works to make a positive difference.