Siemon recognised with green award
Siemon has been presented with the Green Award at the COMMS EXPO Network and Data Communications conference and exhibition awards ceremony on 28th June at London's Barbican.
Based on the results of a pan-European industry survey, this award recognises many years of trail-blazing by the company on the environmental front. Famous already for it's green credentials and for the 3000 acre forest operated by the company's board, Siemon (turt.co/tsc0597x) was able to announce in February 2010 that it had achieved "zero landfill" status after an ISO 14001 driven internal audit reported that over 99 per cent of waste material at the Siemon headquarters and manufacturing campus was being recycled, reused or repurposed in an environmentally friendly way. This is mirrored at Siemon's EMEA headquarters, where the waste is sorted by a specialist company to ensure the maximum amount is recycled and does not reach landfill.
In July 2010, the company was able to declare, based on US Environmental Protection Agency data, that its carbon reductions and offsets had led to the Siemon campus becoming not just carbon neutral but in fact some 330 percent carbon negative.
"We didn't set out to be carbon negative," Steve Foster, the company's managing director for EMEA explained. "We just want to be as efficient and environmentally responsible as possible. Being carbon negative is the natural result of over 50 years of progressive environmental stewardship.
"Just about every enterprise, especially manufacturers, produces carbon, but our success at Siemon proves that there are economical and effective ways to offset the impact of those emissions," he explained.
According to Foster, the company's approach is twofold: firstly Siemon adheres to longstanding continual improvement policies that drive efficient manufacturing and business processes. Because a more efficient use of energy and materials is not only sound business practice, but also makes the company a more environmentally sustainable operation. Secondly, confident that carbon emissions were being reduced at the source, Siemon developed ways to make further cuts through better waste management, alternative fuels and offsets.
As Siemon continues to improve internal operations and processes, it is also working proactively with suppliers and partners to identify areas where mutual improvements to upstream and downstream impact can be made.
At the COMMS EXPO conference, Siemon's global director of data centre solutions and services Carrie Higbie collected the award and presented a paper entitled "Data Centre Designs for a Green and Agile Environment" in which she interpreted what the latest standards really tell engineers and users; and how bad designs can negatively impact a data centre. Higbie went on to explain how to successfully design for optimal savings.
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