Our Environmental and Ethical Policy

Document Version 2010/01/DKF

We're a pretty caring bunch of people. We are, and always have been, commited to reducing our impact on the environment, long before it became the hot topic it now is.

We are big believers in putting in place practical steps to make sure we minimise waste and power consumption. An interesting challenge when you're looking after over 2000 servers!

Our environmental policy (below) outlines the ways in which we're trying to do our bit. Make sure you follow our blog as we're always looking for, and implementing, improvements to reduce our impact on the environment.

A lot of server hosting companies are simply 'going carbon neutral', and proclaiming this as a catch-all solution to the environmental challenges faced by datacentres.  At Melbourne, we'd rather buy renewable energy in the first place, and also to take pragmatic steps to actually reduce our energy consumption on a real basis. 

We like efficiency as it's good for the world, but also, it saves money.

Environmental Policy

Melbourne is committed to continually improving our environmental performance through a policy of constant review and improvement.

Environmentally friendly data centres

By far our most concerted effort into, and largest improvements to our environmental impact are through the enhancement of efficiency in our data centre facilities. We have conducted a large-scale programme over the past 36 months to improve the efficiency in our data centres by:

• Buying renewable energy for our managed hosting datacentres.  We know of only a handful of other UK datacentre operators doing this.
• Installing cold aisle containment and blanking plates to contain cold air in cold
  aisles, and to prevent mixing with the hot air expelled from the rear of server
  cabinets. This has effected an approximately 25% reduction in like-for-like cooling
  requirement for the facilities.
• The use of highly efficient UPS systems which achieve approximately 95%
  efficiency, about 10% more efficient when compared with “traditional” UPS types.
• We buy the latest energy efficient servers, which use up to 50% less power than the previous models which they replace.  We have an active program of phasing out higher-powered older generation servers from our datacentres.
• A programme of continual design improvement feedback to datacentre layout and
  choice of air-conditioning equipment.

Saving energy as a company

We promote the efficient use of resources including water, electricity and raw materials,
contributing to sustainable development by:

• Using air conditioning / heating only during office hours.
• Switching all desktop machines to low-power consumption models.
• Turning off all non-essential desktop machines and monitors at the end of every
  day.
• Switching off all lights over night.

Obviously the above aren't going to save the planet by themselves, but it's part of a complete commitment to make a difference.

Encouraging recycling

We endeavour to recycle all suitable waste and help prevent climate change by:

• Working towards a 100% paperless office. Where possible printing of any documents is avoided; all invoices and other customer communications are sent electronically.
• Recycling waste paper.
• Re-using scrap paper.
• Purchasing recycled, recyclable or re-furbished products when possible.
• Re-furbishing all non faulty used server parts whenever possible.
• Ensuring the correct disposal of faulty/used server parts.

Future Actions

We are investigating funding the planting of natural woodland, and the preservation of the same, to prevent it from being developed and are continuing to develop our environmental actions by continually assessing our current and future actions.

Implementation, Policy Improvement and Feedback

Staff awareness of the environmental policy is ensured by providing internal training and communications. We operate a policy of feedback and continual improvement. If you would like further information, or have any comments on our environmental policy, please get in touch.