Environmental impact
At Embark we recognise the importance of reducing our environmental impact regarding energy and waste reduction; including the encouragement of ongoing recycling, travel reduction and the use of raw material from sustainable or renewable sources. We actively work with our supply chain to look at the traceability of the materials and work with them to develop methodologies that reduce consumption and environmental impact as an ongoing part of our relationship.
Cloud computing
We have chosen to transfer our large number of servers to Microsoft Azure; in order to reduce our electricity consumption, a decision that was also driven by the fact that Microsoft’s cloud data centres (via a service called ‘Azure’) will be powered by 100% renewable energy sources by 2025.
A sustainable future through tech
The Microsoft Sustainability Calculator provides new insight into carbon emissions data associated with Azure services.
By using tools such as Sustainability Calculators, we are able to report on and drive sustainability by showing the carbon impact of each Azure enrolment, as well as see estimated carbon savings from running those workloads versus on-premises data centres.
Consumption, waste and travel
Recycling is actively encouraged and promoted throughout our eight office locations in the UK, along with a drive to reduce the number of consumables being used. These include:
- Defunct IT equipment either being donated to local communities or recycled
- We don’t deploy single use plastics into any office
- We continue to fit energy efficient lighting as part of our ongoing building refurbishment programme
- Communal recycling stations replace individual desk bins
We actively look to reduce our impact on the environment through our office footprint by increasing the use of ‘hot-desks’ and agile working across key locations. In 2021, we installed energy efficient lighting across our London and Dundee offices and installed video-conferencing technology across the business. In 2022, we completed the roll out of LED lighting across the rest of our offices and further enhanced our AV capabilities to promote virtual meetings. We have also invested in electric vehicle charging points in our Head Office in Dundee. We will also look at models for areas like cleaning, to reduce opening hours of buildings and the related environmental impact.
Financial fraud and scams
We always ensure our customers can easily access guides to avoiding pensions scams and frauds, all available on the client websites.
The Covid-19 pandemic has unfortunately highlighted that fraudsters have stepped up their efforts to scam people out of money. At Embark, we take this very seriously and have prepared some information to help protect the public.