Achieving Progress, Sustainably
Putting our vision of social and environmental sustainability into practice means thinking big. We aren’t another company delivering warm words; we are recognised as one of the UK’s leaders in sustainable IT Solutions and are committed to building on that reputation further.
Through being creative, collaborating with like-minded organisations, building trust, and always having an eye on outcomes, we’re able to demonstrate real progress.
Environmental and social challenges are best tackled with decisive and collaborative engagement. While we’ve achieved so much individually, we’ve also thought creatively about how to engage with customers, suppliers, and our employees to build a wider movement for progress.
We have already made a real difference across a range of environmental, social, and governance-related initiatives such as the ones below:
Progress through sustainable innovation
The tech sector is built on innovation, but for us, that’s not just about the products themselves. Bringing an innovative mindset to the way we procure, package, sell, and deal with end-of-life products is key, along with creativity in how we operate internally and with our partners. Highlights include:
- Device refurbishment – our ‘Revive’ machine, which can print new keyboards onto used laptops, then ‘wrap’ them with new shells to make them look as good a new for future use – see it in action in the video.
- Plastic removal – using cardboard lids, sustainable laptop ‘sleeves’, SSD card holders, and more while stripping out single-use plastics.
- Retrofit carbon credits – we’ve worked with a social housing organisation to fund carbon credits which are helping to reduce the carbon impact of their properties, as well as delivering true social value for residents living in them.
- Environmental dashboard – internal reporting on energy usage at our HQ is now available via a live dashboard on our intranet. If employees want to see how much carbon we’re saving through solar energy use for example, it’s available at with a click.
Partnerships that deliver positive change
We’re continually looking to work collaboratively with suppliers, customers and other external organisations. Collaborations were particularly proud of include:
- Tree planting with Ecologi – for every IT recycling collection we make, a tree is planted. That’s over 20,000 so far.
- HP Amplify Impact – this sustainability initiative from HP saw Converge become the UK’s first Impact 5 Star partner.
- Enhancing digital accessibility with Thriiver – technology should be an enabler, that’s why were proud of our partnership with Thriiver.
- Closing the digital gap with Chapter One – Cisco and supporting and volunteering with Chapter One whose mission is “to create a world where all children have the literacy skills to thrive”
- Converge Sustainable Supplier Awards – our inaugural awards celebrated the progress of seven suppliers in partnership with Qonstrue.
Progress built on trust
Our aim is to be recognised as the UK’s number one for sustainable IT. Doing that means instilling an unrivalled level of trust in our customers, suppliers, and indeed our own teams. That means having our business practices independently assessed and achieving industry-leading standards and accreditations to back up our claims. Our accreditations include:
- Zero-avoidable-waste to landfill, in-house recycling (Valpak).
- Industry-leading data security and erasure accreditations (ADISA and blancco).
- Gold accreditation for generating social value (CRSA).
- Silver accreditation for sustainability – awarded to the top 15% of businesses assessed (Ecovadis).
- Disability Confident Employer accreditation.
- Living Wage Employer.
Progress based on proof
You can only track progress if it can be measured. That’s why we invested in social value reporting that allows us to track the outcomes of our efforts across well over 100 different measures. Furthermore, we can track customers’ social value accumulation using bespoke reporting tools and metrics. Some of the headline measures include:
- CO2 emissions reduction and equivalent measures.
- Hours spent on employee training across a host of areas.
- Hours spent on social and environmental initiatives e.g. employee volunteering.
- Amount raised through charitable activities.
- Number of apprenticeships offered and completed, and their total duration.
- Number of roles made available to those from a disadvantaged background.
