our sustainability efforts
As part of our
submission to the Carbon
Disclosure Project in both 2008 and 2009, we disclosed a range of
measures we have already undertaken to reduce the environmental impact of our
operations around the world, and given a long-term commitment to implementing
an Environmental Management System, to establish a process and governance
framework for our global operations, which currently extend to 47 countries.
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We have implemented an occupancy
sensor-based system that has reduced energy usage by 85 percent, saving
more than US$4 million in electricity costs over 10 years.
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One
way that we have reduced our carbon footprint is to improve energy
efficiency; Since 2006, improvements in our data centres and the
virtualisation of servers have already been the focus of internal
streamlining in the Americas, Europe and Australia. In North America, the
restructuring of our data centre reduced both the number of servers and the
energy the centre consumes by 50 percent. In Europe, we consolidated our telephony
environment from eight separate locations and 33 servers into just two sites
and seven servers. In Australia, the consolidation and virtualisation of our
data centre led to the reduction of physical servers from 200 to a mere 75,
halving the number of racks required and leading to corresponding reduction
in energy consumption.
To
drive efficiency and productivity gains whilst reducing travel and related
greenhouse gas emissions, we have deployed collaborative tools including
eight Cisco TelePresence units and 140 TANDBERG videoconferencing units
across the regions. The internal implementation of e-procurement through
Dimension Data Direct in 2007 resulted in an estimated annual saving of 2.6
million sheets – i.e. 12.5 tonnes – of paper, as well as avoiding the
associated environmental effects from their production and distribution.
Among
other measures at our head office campus in Johannesburg, South Africa, we
have implemented an occupancy sensor-based system that controls lighting
usage. Based on a study by Tshwane University, the system has been documented
as reducing energy usage by 85 percent, saving more than US$4 million in
electricity costs over 10 years.
