As part of Exertis’ sustainability journey, we encourage the vendors we work with to make necessary changes to benefit the environment.

Exertis UK has partnered with Dell to drive attention to the changes both businesses are enacting to promote sustainability across operations and product lines.

Working together

To highlight the partnership between Dell and Exertis, both businesses hosted a webinar to describe the actions we’re taking for sustainability. In a Channel first, guest speakers Angela Cross (Dell UK Technologies Director in Datacentre Solutions) and Emma Boniface (Sustainability Manager at Exertis UK) gave a breakdown of what our businesses are doing to become more sustainable, sharing key milestones and future plans. The webinar outlined how our businesses are not only well-matched in our sustainability focus, but how our partnership can drive further success.

Dell’s sustainability mission

Over the past decade, computer manufacturer Dell has been working to ensure it creates high-quality, reliable products that incorporate sustainable designs and materials, while also adapting packaging to reduce waste and drive innovation through recycled and renewable alternatives. By applying these changes, Dell has been able to reduce product energy intensity by 76% since 2013.

Device efficiency

As a globally-acclaimed technology distributor, it’s important for us at Exertis to ensure the products we’re promoting to our customers reflect our values. That’s why we’re proud of the steps Dell has taken to create a product line that’s environmentally responsible, from materials to packaging and transit. For example, Dell’s Precision Workstations feature an industry-leading sustainable design, and were the first workstations to use reclaimed carbon fibre and renewable bioplastic. Meanwhile, the Dell OptiPlex offers the most recycled material in the Dell commercial portfolio, with up to 65% recycled material – which is similar to the Dell Thin Client range, featuring products with 65% recycled plastic. Dell Monitors provide a perfect example of Dell’s progress in packaging, with all of them being shipped in 100% recyclable corrugate packaging.

Sustainable infrastructure

Dell’s infrastructure products feature three key areas of innovation: energy efficiency; thermals and cooling; and infrastructure consolidation. The first sees Dell making sure its technology is more efficient and less intensive, to reduce energy waste. The thermals and cooling focus sees Dell engineering new solutions for reducing heat generated by devices, to avoid energy being wasted cooling the datacentre. The third key area is focused on products being made denser – simplifying data storage to reduce Dell’s physical and carbon footprint in the datacentre.

Refresh and recycle

One of the Dell initiatives that Exertis UK is most excited to support is its Tech Refresh & Recycle Programme. This allows Dell customers to ensure its organisation is environmentally sustainable by modernising its IT. Designed to help customers transform their infrastructure with new solutions built to handle modern IT demands, the programme helps users increase their data growth and improve sales, all whilst reducing environmental impact.

When devices reach the end of their lifecycle, consumers can return them to Dell, who then ensure they are correctly and responsibly disposed of. Dell aims to retain as many valuable materials from devices as possible to re-use in future Dell products. Through this initiative, Dell has seen 26% of returned gear put towards manufacturing refurbishment – a sustainable solution that also helps reduce costs for customers.