SUSTAINABILITY
Environmental,
Social & Corporate
Governance
Core to Ergo’s culture is the belief that business success is as much about having a positive societal impact as profit. It’s about working with customers, partners, employees and the wider community, bringing our ESG policies to life in the real world.
Sustainability is a top-down priority, driven by the board but embraced by every part of the business. Our Sustainability Committee has a program of work that is embedded in all business units. Our objectives in the committee are driven from sustainability policy, which includes target driven goals and include managing waste, energy footprint, GHG emissions and, of course ensuring we comply with regulatory and legal requirements.
We are proud to be the first managed services provider in Ireland to commit to the UN global compact. We align the associated global goals that the UN are using to focus and drive action measurable and meaningful action. We have assessed the global goal program and have aligned our actions to the individual goals that are most relevant to our business and where we believe we can make the best impact.
Our ESG Strategy has Three Policy Pillars
We reduce our energy consumption and carbon footprint by focusing on Scope 1 and 2 emissions (as defined by the GHG Protocol), produced by equipment and services we directly control or indirectly from the utilities we consume. Ergo have also begun to include scope 3 emissions.
Electricity and water umption iscons continuously reduced and waste generation minimized. We have cut back business travel emissions and encourage virtual meetings where possible.
Ergo have moved from using single use plastics to 100% recyclables in our offices. We also sponsor and encourage our staff to use reusable utensils if at all possible and we avoid the use of single use cutlery where we can.
We embed sustainability in the culture of the company through training, communications and initiatives like our Green Charity Champions.
By selectively sourcing products and packaging from third parties to minimise Scope 3 emissions and by adjusting the supply chain up and downstream, we mitigate the impact of partners who are less advanced in decarbonisation. Our alignment to external ratings assists here, allowing us to easily see where our assessed suppliers position is in advance of a commitment to trade.
Ergo have baselined our carbon footprint, and perform an annual assessment, using an independent third party to measure our scopes 1,2 and 3 emissions and identify opportunities for continuous improvement. All new service offerings and go-to-market propositions are designed and deployed for clients with sustainability in mind.
We procure products and packaging that use low impact materials and avoid the use of ‘single use’ plastics.
Migrating to public clouds can reduce global CO2 emissions by 59 million tons per year, which equates to a 5.9% reduction in total IT emissions or taking 22 million cars off the road. We work with clients on cloud-first strategies that deliver a range of benefits.
- Public clouds can reduce a company’s carbon emissions by economies of scale.
- Virtualization and converged IT stacks make private clouds more energy efficient.
- Cloud enables hybrid working which cuts back on travel and reduces carbon footprints.
We believe this journey is worthwhile from a carbon footprint reduction perspective for our customers, but we are also living this journey. We have taken a strategic decision to be cloud first, co-lo second and to host onsite when there is no viable alternative (for example, Wi-Fi antenna). We have already moved substantially down the road on our migration out of physical on prem hosting and expect to have all our resource hosted in the cloud by the end of 2024.
Ergo are decarbonizing our IT by migrating on prem physical infrastructure from our datacenters to the Microsoft cloud, and we have calculated our carbon footprint for infrastructure savings to be in the region of an 80% reduction from our starting position.
Our commitment to employees as well as people in our community is embedded in the culture of the company. We encourage employee engagement with volunteering for community work program and have a contracted allowance for charitable days. In addition to the allowance we provide, Ergo also organizes charitable contribution at a business unit and organization level, which are employees can partake of, without deducting from their personal allowance for charitable contribution.
We contribute to many non-profit charities, often as selected by our employees. As an organization, Ergo are proud to have a long-term relationship with the Make a Wish foundation.
Since 1992, Make-A-Wish has granted more than 2,600 wishes to children with life-threatening medical conditions, and we wanted to find out how we would help.
For us, helping Make a Wish successful is a key part of our sustainability policy. The third pillar of our policy is our commitment to support our people and community by giving back through charity and supporting our local communities.
Our Targets
- By end 2025, Ergo will have assessed our supply chain for carbon emissions, to measure whether our main OEMs understand the impacts of last mile delivery and whether they have a plan of action around Net Zero goals or plans for electric delivery.
- By end of 2025, carry out a baseline on Scope 3 upstream and downstream and set a Net Zero target
- By 2030, Ergo has an ambition to be Net Zero for Scope 1, 2 and 3 Emissions
- Perform and annual account and assess of waste, with a target to maintain zero waste to landfill target across all our offices.
- Support at least 100 days of volunteering P/A
- Fundraise €100k for charity with business match funding to a maximum of €150k
AWARDS & ACCREDITATIONS
Relationships
based on trust
We fuse imagination, expertise, and cutting-edge technology to propel remarkable results.
