Distribution Central launches Carbon Control green initiative

The distributor has partnered with The Carbon Credits Trust to offset carbon emissions.

The Trust also helps organisations to reduce their environmental impact to decrease costs and improve profitability.

The Distribution Central Control configurator will calculate the carbon offset required to offset the manufacture and annual power consumption of participating vendors.

According to Scott Frew, CEO of Distribution Central, it takes a worst-case view on any elements of uncertainty and automatically does the calculations through the Carbon Control carbon credit calculator it has built.

It can calculate the carbon emissions that any product can produce which results in a carbon credit a reseller can buy or pass on to their end user.

"The products we sell through our business units are manufactured and the process produces carbon emissions," said Frew.

"We collect this data from our manufacturers and associate it with the current cost of carbon, then enter this into a formula, which considers the carbon weight of the steel, cost of construction, power consumption over the life of a product.

"We pass on all carbon offset purchase orders to The Carbon Credits Trust, on behalf of our resellers at our cost.

"The trust uses the funds to invest in several carbon offset projects such as renewable energy, recycling, forestry and energy efficiency," added Frew.

What the reseller buys is a product that manifests as a certificate from The Carbon Credits Trust.

When a reseller generates a quote for products and services from any of Distribution Central's business units, they are automatically presented with an option to acquire a carbon credit to offset applicable carbon emissions accumulated by the devices for one year.

The carbon offset is an additional option, like any other option available on a particular bill of materials being quoted on.

The offset credit is also a renewable item, just like any software license or maintenance contract.

However, the reseller can purchase an up front three years of usage.

"The entire process is managed through Distribution Central's custom built solutions configurator and asset management engine, said Frew.

"We have gone live today with the manufacturers that have been able to give us accurate information to determine the carbon emissions of their products in manufacture in use.

"They are Aruba, Blue Coat, Crossbeam, F5, Force10 Networks, Fortinet and WatchGuard. We expect all our vendors to be included in time.

"Our vendors and customers are telling us that this is a world first, simplified and therefore enabled through our home grown configurator and asset management tools."