case study: essent - leviton network solutions europe · essent’s obsolete data centre...
Post on 27-Jul-2020
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Essent’s obsolete data centre infrastructure gets a new lease of life thanks to Brand-Rex
Headquartered in the city of ‘s-Hertogenbosch in the southern Netherlands, Essent, part of the German RWE
(Rheinisch-Westfälisches Elektrizitätswerk) Group, is the largest energy company in the country. It provides heat
and other related services and has a history of gas supply dating back over 150 years.
Essent has developed a rigorous corporate social responsibility (CSR) agenda and is aiming to supply all of its
energy CO2-neutral by 2050.
C A S E S T U DY: E S S E N T
Recognising the fact that the growth of the worldwide population together
with increasing prosperity are forcing the demand for raw materials
upward, Essent recycles wherever and whenever it can.
Having decided to consolidate its data centre operations into the RWE Data
Centre in Germany, Essent had to decommission two existing facilities in
Landgraaf and Tilburg. This meant that the now obsolete cabling, servers,
racks, power distribution units (PDU’s) and cable management needed to
be removed.
Both Essent and Brand-Rex have a strong focus on minimising waste
decided to recycle as much as possible of the waste resulting from the
decommissioning of the current Essent Data Centres.
cabling infrastructure at other customers’ sites and so took the lead in this
ambitious project to sustainably dispose of the existing infrastructure.
Marco Spoel, maintenance and support manager at Essent commented,
‘Having a sustainable IT infrastructure is an important companywide
objective and it was therefore logical for us to want to do this. Essent’s
Green-IT achievement was rewarded with the number one position in
Gartner’s Green-IT benchmark in both 2010 and 2012.’
Brand-Rex has a long history of environmental awareness and boasts
industry leading green credentials. In 2011 it announced that its global
organisational and operational activities had achieved Carbon Neutral
Status in accordance with PAS 2060 and it was subsequently announced as
a winner at the 2011 and 2013 VIBES Environment Management Awards.
More recently Brand-Rex was named runner-up to Dell as Manufacturer
of the Year at the Green IT Awards 2013, which reward organisations that
environmental performance over the preceding 12 months.
Erwin Deeben of Brand-Rex said, “As natural resources will become
increasingly scarce in the future it is key for us all to explore possibilities such as
urban mining and recycling of end-of life, or end of support
cabling infrastructures.”
Asked why he thought Brand-Rex could add value to the project, Spoel
replied, “There are many similarities between our two companies in terms of
our environmental principles. Also, much of the decommissioned equipment
from the Data Centres contains raw materials found in Brand-Rex products and
we hope that they can be used for these purposes again,
in the spirit of a “cascading ” approach to material use.
Erwin Deeben, and his team would devise and implement a seamless process.”
After this the containers where collected from site by recycling partner
and waste management specialist, Van Gansewinkel, and transported to
a recycling facility in Helden, where they were processed to be recycled
or used for the generation of energy.
Under Brand-Rex leadership, a massive 91 per cent of the products retrieved
from site have been reused, with the main proportion comprising of power
cables, unshielded twisted pair copper cable and steel. Products that were
The entire project achieved a positive revenue stream after all costs were
deducted, meaning that Essent’s original budget for the project was
unused. Essent and Brand-Rex are now reinvesting this sum into sponsoring
panels - via 1miljoenwatt.nl - to the “Playing for Success” initiative.
“This process has proven that the disposal of network infrastructure products
can be carried out in a way that is economically viable, clean and green and
therefore sustainable,’ concluded Erwin Deeben. Essent is delighted with
the results and we look forward to using our experience here to help other
businesses achieve similar results in the future.”
C A S E S T U DY: E S S E N T
united kingdomtel: +44 (0) 1592 772124 web: www.brand-rex.com email: marketing@brand-rex.com
CS_BRX588_0913
The entire project achieved a positive revenue stream after all costs were deducted, meaning that Essent’s
original budget for the project was unused. Essent and Brand-Rex are now reinvesting this sum into
via 1miljoenwatt.nl - to the “Playing for Success” initiative.
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