The reduction of Re-Tek’s carbon footprint is a key objective of our Board of Directors.
The company has been delivering on this by engaging with key industry and sector organisations to seek advice which has subsequently been acted on. The nature of the company’s services, by reselling refurbished ICT equipment, has provided significant carbon savings over conventional recycling and landfill.
Engaging with the Sector for Best Practice
Re-Tek have engaged with the Scottish Energy Centre (SEC) at Napier University and Resource Efficient Scotland (RES) as part of its ambition to be, and to demonstrate, that it is on a pathway to becoming a low carbon impact, and then, a carbon neutral company. Both the SEC and RES carried out audits of the energy use at Re-Tek, identified where the most significant carbon emissions were generated from, and recommended a number of ways forward to reduce the impacts. The best practice opportunities have subsequently been acted on.
Implementing Best Practice
Following the RES support, Re-Tek have invested in LED lighting throughout the facility, further reducing our CO2 emissions. The SEC, after reviewing alternatives for the integration of micro-renewables, identified a number of options to incorporate lower carbon energy sources. As a result, we installed a 60kW biomass boiler fed with wood pellets from sustainable forests and a 50kW array using 62 solar panels. These investments in infrastructure have resulted in CO2eq savings of 50 tonnes per year with 70% of our energy requirements coming from renewable sources.
Carbon Savings from Reuse and Recycling
In 2017, Re-Tek managed just under 200,000 items of equipment, a proportion of which were non-ICT. Re-using and extending the lifecycle of circa 140,000 ICT units equated to approximately 26,600* tonnes of CO2eq. savings for that year. The combination of diversion from conventional recycling/landfill and the re-use of goods equates to a significantly reduced environmental impacts.
*WRAP estimates 0.19 tCO2eq per product saving for TVs (no data for ICT), using the BOR2 tool. This is based on having a 3-year second life and displacing the purchase of a new product. Using the same value, as a proxy for ICT, means that 140,000 units reused saves 26,600 tCO2eq for 2017.
We have worked with a number of partners to help us deliver our plans for a low carbon future, but we will continue to identify and act to reduce CO2 impacts.
We welcome dialogue from partners to help achieve our objective of a carbon neutral facility so please get in touch.