For over 23 years, Box UK has provided digital solutions that help businesses adapt and evolve at pace. But in a world where we have to think more carefully about our environmental impact, how is Box UK doing their bit for a greener Wales?

Business News Wales sat down with the Head of Information Technology at Box UK, Alistair Gibbs to chat about the company’s sustainability.

Check out the interview here:

Alistair said:

“We currently recycle all our used computer hardware through Wastesavers. We also resell old hardware on platforms such as eBay. We have now moved most of our servers into the cloud. This makes it much easier to ensure that these are as green as can be, using economies of scale.”

Wastesavers are a Newport-based charity that recycles more than 18,000 tonnes of material a year. That is the equivalent of more than 85,000 trees per year.

In a world that has turned hybrid following the pandemic, Alistair told Business News Wales that Box UK found themselves in a very fortunate situation. Prior to Covid, they already had a number of staff working remotely as they had moved around the country before the pandemic hit. This, coupled with Box UK’s desire to continually explore new technologies meant that they had video conferencing years before Zoom. Box UK had in fact, switched to Zoom back in 2018!

Box UK even took sustainability into consideration when moving offices over a decade ago.

Alistair said:

“When we moved offices, we wanted to ensure that we had a pleasant environment for everybody to work. We installed Air Source Heat Pumps for our heating and cooling. This means that the entire office only uses electricity- and no gas. As soon as we were able to switch our electricity tariff, we did so and our carbon footprint of the office energy use is extremely low.”

And for Alistair, it doesn’t look like things will go back to the way they used to be…

“I can see us using video conferencing to help maintain these long distance relationships with our clients in the long term. We’ll depend on technologies like whiteboard cameras, multiple screen zoom rooms- and even looking into VR to make this as seamless as possible.”

Whatever Box UK do in the future, be sure that it’ll be in the greenest way possible!