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Step forward in Commsworld’s bid to go landfill free

Posted: 8th November 2019

A TELECOMMUNICATIONS firm has secured a new accreditation as it pursues an ambitious sustainability goal – to send zero waste to landfill.

As a result of sweeping green measures throughout the business, Commsworld has achieved an environmental accreditation ISO:14001.

That’s thanks to the introduction of stringent measures – even monitoring how the aggregate waste created by its suppliers is treated, as well as a policy that sees it recycle all of its computer hardware, often through donations to charity.

John McDermott, Chief Operating Officer with the rapidly-growing Edinburgh-heaquartered business  has been overseeing its sustained green drive.

He said: “To become deeply environmentally focussed and see real change we had to set ourselves lofty targets – and zero landfill is exactly that.

“We believe we can achieve this in the coming years – the next challenge will be accelerating the timeline for delivering this.

“I believe our success here has been down to us getting really granular with our approach to recycling and upcycling. It’s worth it though and is the right thing to do.

“We’re clearly making big steps in the right direction and we’re delighted to have the ISO recognition.”

In addition, Commsworld has also been rewarded with renewed accreditations for quality management (ISO9001) and information security (ISO27001).

John added: “These accreditations are all about monitoring, auditing, measuring and testing our policies and processes.

“It’s not an easy thing to do but adherence to the standards and continually improving on these processes and policies is key to keeping us at the top of our game and it builds confidence from our customers that we have the robust systems in place to support their business requirements.”

Launched in 1994, Commsworld delivered expert telephony services, which it continues to do to this day, moving into networking and connectivity with the acquisition of Fluency in 2014. This helped the firm build a strong reputation within Scotland’s private sector.

However, the importance of the public sector to the firm is underlined by its more recent involvement in some of the UK’s largest contracts (City of Edinburgh Council and Glasgow City Council ICT contracts), which have helped deliver the exponential growth that last year delivered 41% year on year revenue increase, breaking £20million for the first time.

Commsworld is an Edinburgh headquartered firm, with offices in London, Glasgow and Aberdeen and more than 100 staff.

The creation of its Optical Core network means it can offer its renowned low-latency network connectivity across the whole of the UK, representing what is the largest investment of its type in the firm’s history.

 

Business Comment

Business Comment is the Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce’s bi-monthly magazine. It provides insight on Edinburgh’s vibrant business community, with features on the city’s key sectors, interviews with leading figures and news on new business developments in the capital.
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