Office-less reseller goes carbon neutral

Highgate IT Solutions says its lack of a physical building helped it achieve ‘Carbon Neutral Plus’ status

Highgate IT Solutions has bagged Carbon Neutral Plus status amid a wider sustainability push by the reseller.

The Cisco, Lenovo, Dell, Microsoft, HP and Smoothwall partner was awarded Carbon Neutral Plus status by auditor Carbon Footprint earlier this month, and now has its sights set on a sustainability audit of its vendors and suppliers.

The process was simplified by Highgate's 100 per cent remote working model, which it has employed since its inception in 2010.

The accolade comes as CRN gears up to relaunch its Tech Impact campaign next month and amid building customer and investor pressure on channel partners to demonstrate their sustainability credentials.

Highgate sustainability lead Jenny Latimer said Highgate resolved to become a more sustainable business following her and sales director Bob Sahota's arrival at the firm last year.

"Bob, [Highgate managing director] Stuart [Marginson] and I, who are the leadership team here at Highgate, are all passionate about sustainability, the environment and wellbeing. When we all came together to look at Highgate's CSR strategy, we very quickly decided to look at our sustainability messaging."

Based on advice from industry movement Techies Go Green, Highgate approached Carbon Footprint to measure and certify its carbon emissions, which it then "double" offset, Latimer explained.

Scope 3 supplier plea

Highgate is now gearing up to audit its vendors and suppliers in a bid to understand the more obscure scope 3 emissions that lie within its supply chain.

"One of the projects ongoing for this year is to run a supplier audit, and I've started speaking to distribution partners to understand their sustainability messaging," Latimer explained.

"We understand the scope 1 and 2 emissions, and that's what gets us to be carbon-neutral plus. But we also know there is the whole other side where we need to assess our suppliers. Lenovo have really strong sustainability messaging, and they're one of our biggest partners."

With Highgate in the process of boosting its headcount from 12 to 20, Latimer said the energy footprint of its home-based employees could soon come under scrutiny.

"It's a bit of a balancing act, as we do understand that the increase in employees will increase our carbon footprint. One thing we were recommended through TechiesGoGreen is to look at renewable energy tariffs for home users. That's one area that could help," she said.