environmental policy statement

At this time of global climate change and diminishing natural resources, Dimension Data is committed to responsible environmental stewardship and sustainable business practices.  As a global IT solutions and services company, we recognize that our operations have an impact on the environment.  In the interest of our stakeholders, including our employees, clients, shareholders and suppliers, we are firmly committed to minimizing this impact through continual improvement of our own business practices and to developing, promoting and implementing IT solutions and services that assist in preventing pollution.

SCOPE

Our commitment to continual improvement extends across the entirety of the IT business chain that we are a part of.  This includes -

i.  Our business operations.  Within the administrative and operational areas of our business, we are in the process of deploying an Environmental Management System (EMS) and are committed to measuring and monitoring our environmental footprint, reducing our energy consumption, travel-related carbon emissions, paper and consumables’ usage and waste.  In addition, we are continually seeking to improve the lifespan of products by reusing and recycling wherever possible. 

ii.  Our clients and client services.  Through the services we provide, we seek to promote the most energy efficient and environmentally sustainable options appropriate for our clients, aiming to consider not simply their energy consumption but the impacts of the entire lifecycle of any hardware involved - from manufacture to final disposal - wherever possible.  We will work with our clients, manufacturers and partners to foster life-cycle and environmental thinking so that environmental impacts are minimized during operation and on disposal.

iii.  Our partners and suppliers.  The degree of environmental responsibility demonstrated by our existing and potential manufacturers and suppliers will increasingly play a part in our procurement decisions.  To this end, we have adopted an environmental procurement policy as part of our broader EMS.  The company is also a member of the Green Grid, a consortium of IT companies which has a mandate to work together to find ways to enhance energy-efficiency in data centres and business computing systems.

iv.  Our employees.  Our people are integral to our environmental practices and we have started to communicate with our employees about how they can help the company and themselves to be more aware of the environmental impact of their everyday lives.

OBJECTIVES

As a group, we are specifically committed to the following objectives and to continuous improvement by –

Environmental Legislation and Regulation

·         Complying with all legal requirements within our business operations and service provision.

Operations and Business Practices

·         Measuring, monitoring and reducing the carbon and environmental impacts of our business.

·         Continually identifying and monitoring environmental issues that may arise from our businesses and services and resolving these promptly and effectively.

Community and Employees

·         Fostering an environmental awareness amongst our employees and making them an integral part of the organisation’s sustainability initiatives.

Communications

·         Undertaking regular evaluations of our sustainability initiatives and reporting internally and publicly on our progress in reducing our impact.

TARGET

Emissions reduction targets are currently under review. Baseline assessments and a Carbon Management Strategy have been completed and an EMS is currently in progress.

ENVIRONMENTAL GOVERNANCE AND ACCOUNTABILITIES

Dimension Data is actively committed to responsible environmental stewardship and sustainable business practices.  In order to develop our Carbon Management Strategy and a robust EMS, we have appointed a Global Lead – Sustainability.  This dedicated resource reports directly to the Global Executive Sponsor, who in turn reports to the Global CEO. 

Further accountabilities are as follows:

·         Dimension Data Group CEO, Board Representatives and Group Executive: Regular review of progress against Program Charter.

·         Dimension Data Compliance and Risk Group (including Global Group Head of Risk, Group CIO and Global Lead – Sustainability): Ensuring environmental compliance, and monitoring and managing the company’s strategies to minimize environmental risk.  As required, this group will also appoint an environmental auditor. 

It should be noted that this governance framework will be updated once the EMS is in place, and a longer term global framework has been designed and approved.

Brett Dawson
Chief Executive Officer

Updated 25 September 2009