Brand-Rex’s certified carbon neutral cable has been installed in the new London offices of environmental consultancy, Carbon Clear.
A provider of carbon advisory services and carbon offsets, Carbon Clear has offices in the UK, France, India, Spain, Turkey and the US. The company’s business development manager, Andy Lowe, commented, “Our aim is to shape and promote the low carbon agenda. Businesses choose to work with us because our credibility, operational strength, and consultative approach help them achieve their sustainability goals on time and within budget.’
Kennedy Miller, development manager at Brand-Rex, continued, “We have specifically chosen projects related to our business. This includes one in Chile (where 34% of the world’s copper is mined), which captures the methane from two large landfills that is then flared to prevent its release into the atmosphere, resulting in significant emission reductions.”
When Carbon Clear announced its decision to relocate its UK headquarters to York Way in London, it made a conscious decision to only use products with environmental credentials. This policy extended to its structured cabling infrastructure and having worked with Brand-Rex to make its GigaPlus Category 5e and Cat6Plus Category 6 boxed cable ranges completely carbon neutral, it made sense to partner with Brand-Rex once again.
In order to provide the requisite future-proofing, Cat6Plus was the obvious choice, offering high levels of performance and guaranteed compliance with the Class E/Category 6 published standards as an absolute minimum. Lowe said, “As well as being technically superior, the fact that from 2009 to 2010 Brand-Rex managed to cut the carbon equivalent of its Cat6Plus cable by 9.64% was a major factor in our decision making process.”
Miller added, “Getting to a point where we can describe Cat6Plus as carbon neutral has been a complex but highly worthwhile exercise. By establishing the emissions we create, from the sourcing of the base materials, through to transportation and manufacture, and finally to delivery to Carbon Clear, we can ensure that we offset this with investment in projects that produce fewer greenhouses gasses.”
The Brand-Rex cables also carry carbon footprint markings, while the boxes that they are delivered in have also undergone a significant redesign and are now made of extra strength low carbon cardboard. Furthermore, over the next few months Brand-Rex will be phasing out its HDPE plastic inserts and replacing them with a recycled pulp alternative, making all the components of the boxes fully recyclable.
A total of 90 ports were installed throughout the new offices, along with Brand-Rex 24 port angled Snap-In-Jack patch panels that helped to streamline the installation process. The new infrastructure will support the company’s completely cloud-based IT platform and will enable voice over Internet protocol (VoIP), video and power over Ethernet (PoE) devices to operate over it.
“We know that Brand-Rex structured cabling is the leading product of its kind, however, being able to install a system that has been certified carbon neutral helps us maintain our own highly prized environmental credentials,” concluded Lowe. “I firmly believe that as CO2 reduction gets higher up the procurement agenda, cabling manufacturers with carbon neutral products and a verified carbon reduction agenda will be viewed more favourably than those that don’t.”
