Agilico chose to collaborate with Circularity First due to the latter's expertise in sustainable IT solutions and strategic advisory capabilities. Circularity First's proven track record in helping organisations transition to more sustainable practices made them an ideal partner for Agilico's ambitious goals.
Keen to make sustainability a strategic focus and not a tactic, Agilico and Circularity First worked closely to develop and implement a comprehensive sustainability strategy. The partnership kicked off with a Sustainability Strategy Workshop with senior stakeholders from across the business. This provided a detailed assessment of Agilico's current practices, identifying areas for improvement, and deploying innovative solutions to enhance sustainability. From this, Circularity First could provide both guidance and practical support, ensuring that sustainability initiatives were seamlessly integrated into Agilico's operations. Throughout the 18 month engagement, Circularity First provided a level of ongoing tracking and reporting to ensure continuous improvement and transparency.
As well as senior level engagement, Circularity First played a leading role in delivering programs aimed at educating Agilico's workforce in sustainability efforts. At the annual sales conference, Ignite, Circularity First helped to shift the sales focus towards remanufactured IT, demonstrating to the sales function the opportunity available to them in reselling it, as well as the sustainability impact. This helped to foster a company-wide commitment to environmental responsibility.
By touching lots of different parts of the business, innovative approaches to sustainability were adopted.
The engagement helped Agilico to realise the opportunities that sustainability could have on their margins by diversifying their go-to markets and generating efficiencies. The strategic adoption of remanufactured equipment into their portfolio allowed them to introduce a more price-competitive product with a strong margin to a specific customer set.
The benefits for the environment spoke for themselves. Almost 40% of the devices that are sold now come from remanufacturing. Aside from leading to a reduction in e-waste, it all removes the carbon and mineral consumption associated with new products.
Outside of remanufacturing, wider environmental benefits were realised by aligning with the UNs SDGs. This included removing the supply of bottled water from office premises and introducing biodegradable packaging at no extra cost to lower plastics in water. Where possible, they also moved into more energy efficient premise and 80% of the company fleet is now electric.
From a people perspective engaging employees in sustainability efforts has improved workplace morale and fostered a sense of shared purpose. Now, staff are coming up with their own contributions.
The sustainable strategy has also acted as a unifier that employees can get behind, improving engagement and helping to bring new employees into the culture.
Looking towards the future, there are a number of initiatives that Agilico are looking to take forward, such as establishing SBTI’s. Agilico’s CEO believes that there is a real opportunity to further grow the business through sustainability as well.
Taking the customer on the remanufacturing journey. Agilico invited customers into their remanufacturing workshops so they could see the process and try and identify which was a new product and which was remanufactured, often mislabelling the latter as new!
