Sustainability at RazorSecure
Where technical innovation meets sustainability
How we Reduce Our Environmental Impact
At RazorSecure, we pride ourselves on our culture of sustainability and this is entwined throughout every aspect of our business.
With a strong ethos for reducing our environmental impact, we minimise unnecessary travel with a strategy for virtual meetings and events. When we do need to take flights, care is taken to select routes that minimise emissions and we have an economy-only flight policy. And as an organisation firmly established in the rail sector, we of course encourage train travel, public transport in general, and car sharing wherever possible, and many of our team members choose more active modes of transport such as cycling! Our principle for sustainability is entwined throughout our processes, and when the situation aligns, we ensure our customers receive their hardware and packages directly from us during planned visits, bypassing delivery firms.
Travel
Our culture of working virtually eliminates the daily commute, which in turn reduces the amount of CO2 emissions our workforce would otherwise generate. The significant impact this has on the environment can be demonstrated by the findings of recent studies, which highlight that employees working remotely for four days a week can reduce nitrogen dioxide emissions by as much as 10%.
Remote working
From our founding team to today, we are a remote workforce and have been operating virtually across the globe from the outset, extending our paperless culture in every aspect of our business. Having a predominantly paperless office strategy dramatically reduces our paper consumption, saving trees and significantly reducing deforestation. Trees play a vital role in removing dangerous pollutants from our atmosphere, filtering carbon monoxide and sulphur dioxide from the air we breathe. Decomposing paper on the other hand, produces carbon dioxide and methane, further aggravating climate change.
When you consider that even one remote, paperless worker reduces as much as 14.7 pounds of carbon dioxide from the air, we gain a clear picture of how we can each play a role in cutting greenhouse gas emissions.
Paperless
Ink & Toner…less!
Our minimal use of ink and toner goes hand in hand with our paperless office strategy, and the cartridges we do use are disposed of at dedicated recycling points. This reduces the impact we have on the number of cartridges thrown away by offices each year. Ink and toner cartridges have a detrimental effect on the environment throughout their lifecycle. From their manufacturing, to their use and disposal, they are a major contributor of hazardous waste in landfills. When not disposed of correctly, they take a staggering 1,000 years to decompose, and the hazardous materials they contain, such as heavy metals and toxic chemicals pollute the environment. Sadly, 350 million printer cartridges are disposed of in landfill worldwide each year.
Recycling
At RazorSecure, we take recycling seriously and reuse in every possible scenario. From general waste to packaging materials, we process our material waste responsibly and have repurposed every piece of IT equipment since our humble beginning, bringing it inline with the latest spec for further use.
Although we are predominantly home-based, our central location is handled by our Operations Manager, who, together with other RazorSecure team members, is part of a local childrens amateur dramatic society. As part of our contribution, we collect all our packaging materials to donate to the society, where it is repurposed for props and on set.
Energy Usage
Our primary goal is to reduce our server energy consumption and carbon footprint, and as our server infrastructure is predominantly cloud-based, we are playing a vital role in the reduction of the world's carbon emissions. 2% of the carbon emitted in the world is from global information and communications technology, and the enormity of server emissions due to their housing and storing is extensive. Yet with the use of cloud computing, global server energy usage is estimated to decrease by 38%, equating to a massive 28% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.
At RazorSecure, we use our skills to develop products that take advantage of existing digital infrastructure on trains. We have created a small resource footprint agent that runs in a Virtual Machine, eliminating the need for continuous installation of hardware across train fleets, and further reducing resource-usage in our server infrastructure.
We Meet the ISO 14001 Environmental Standard
RazorSecure has met - and continues to meet - the requirements of ISO 14001, which specifies the environmental management system an organisation can use to enhance its environmental performance and sustainability. We have applied the requirements to all environmental aspects of our activities, products and services.
Our Partners’ Commitment to Sustainability
At RazorSecure, we select our partners carefully and have sourced manufacturers within the EU who have a strong ethos for sustainability and environmental awareness. Our suppliers are low-emission technology companies by design, reducing power consumption and the dependency on precious resources.
We collaborate with our suppliers to create products that meet the needs of our customers' space and infrastructure, and maintain an awareness of carbon footprint by ensuring minimal flight space and weight is consumed. RazorSecure hardware is developed with commitment to the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, using eco-friendly building materials and machines operated by solar power.
