GDSA Summit

“We are not predicting a climate emergency; we are in a climate emergency.” 

Chris Howes did not sugar coat his introductory speech to the Government Digital Sustainability Alliance event this March in London. However, he also avoided despair. Tackling the unfortunate truth that we have already exceeded the safe limits of global temperature rise and species loss, he said that there have been 5 mass extinction events. This is the first time in history we are able to avoid it.  

Within the UK, technology touches every household – 97.8% of the British public use the internet, as of 2024 and, as of 2023, there are over 85 million mobile subscriptions in the UK. With technology playing a vital role in the lives of so many, creating environmentally friendly solutions for our IT habits is essential for a sustainable future.  

The Government Digital Sustainability Alliance is designed to bring Defra (Department for Environment and Rural Affairs) into conversation with prospective government suppliers and to drive sustainable technology developments for the UK Government.  

Techbuyer recently attended the GDSA summit, an opportunity for current and potential members of the alliance to consider the upcoming challenges concerning sustainability in technology and the circular IT economy. Two major points to come out of the conference: We need to innovate to ensure technology creates a net positive impact on the environment; we need to be quick about it.  

We found ourselves in good company at the summit, with names such as Dell Technologies, Microsoft and Hewlett Packard Enterprise having a presence. Also present were non-profits working on green code, open source to share resources and numerous academics. The atmosphere was inclusive, cooperative and also very honest.  

The information sessions and breaks were filled with lively discussion on how we can work together to create a more sustainable future. Favourite ideas from the Circular Economy session were cascading assets between different government departments and creating a rebate system for retired assets. At the moment, government bodies are not set up to sell items to the secondary market, so this would be a way of helping budgets and encouraging reuse.   

What became clear during the event is that there are a lot of very committed people within government and its supply chain working for more sustainable digital activities. Despite some fairly startling headlines, there was a real hope in the room that we can do something positive about it.  

The Impact of the Alliance  

The transition to sustainable technology begins at the top. With the government adopting more sustainable IT habits – utilising refurbished technology, practising environmentally friendly, yet secure, disposal methods, and exploring energy efficiency in their technology – these methods become more readily available and attractive to businesses.  

Techbuyer is a provider of sustainable IT solutions, focused on developing a viable and thriving circular economy for the technology sector. Within this, we extend the lifespan of IT hardware through refurbishment, maintenance and repairs, and we provide sustainable disposal methods that look to reuse as much as possible. Whether an organisation needs new or refurbished technology, we work with them to minimise their environmental impact whilst retaining power, performance and reliability of their technology.  

However, we try to do more than “sell” sustainable solutions. We try to practice what we preach. Techbuyer was recently named as a supplier on the CCS TePAS 2 (Technology and Associated Services 2) Framework for Lot 2, Lot 7 and Lot 8. This means that we can provide refurbished and new IT solutions, IT Asset Disposition (ITAD) services and a full catalogue of products to all public sector organisations.

At the same time, our Social Value Statement, Carbon Reduction Plan and framework of targets set against the UN Sustainable Development Goals aim to keep us honest in our commitment to sustainable solutions.  

Because of this, we focused on creating environmentally friendly solutions that meet our current and future needs. We have a dedicated research team examining the performance and efficiency of servers to help us develop solutions that do not compromise on any metric and meet the needs of the selected workloads.

We have rolled out IEMA certified Sustainability training to all employees and support staff on their journey to registered environmentalist status if that is their interest.  

For all of these reasons, we have applied to be members of the Government Digital Sustainability Alliance now that it is opening its doors to new members. For more news on our progress, watch this space.  

Contact our team for more information, or view our full range of services here.