CRN launches Tech Impact campaign and awards
New event will highlight and honour those vendors and channel partners leading the way when it comes to environmental and social sustainability
Technology has tremendous power to reshape the world for the better.
That's why we are delighted to launch a new campaign and awards highlighting and honouring those vendors and channel partners leading the way when it comes to their own environmental and social impact, and that of their technology, solutions and services.
The CRN Tech Impact Campaign will run throughout 2021, culminating in a two-hour live show and awards on 15 September.
View the campaign hub here and awards categories here.
Spurred on by new regulations and growing awareness and alarm over the climate crisis, end users are increasingly demanding to work with only the most socially responsible and sustainable tech providers.
Recent CRN research shows that sustainability alone is now a top-three consideration for more than half of UK IT decision makers when selecting IT suppliers.
The CRN Tech Impact Campaign will highlight innovation and best practice within the industry as it responds to this pent up demand.
Are sustainable and commercial success mutually exclusive? What role can the channel play in fulfilling UK organisations' wider need to reduce their carbon footprint, and how can they best embark on their own internal sustainability journeys? And what are the most innovative solutions and business models already being employed by industry visionaries in this area?
These are some of the questions CRN will tackle over the coming months as we boost our coverage of what may well be the defining topic of the 2020s.
This campaign picks up where last year's Sustainability Campaign left off.
Last Spring, we highlighted several examples of where IT providers large and small are stepping up on sustainability. We explored how one firm is using 'bugs' to extract precious metals from printed circuit boards, asked whether liquid immersion cooling is the answer to more sustainable datacentres, and dropped in on Microsoft two years after it sunk a datacentre off the coast of Scotland.
We also touched on the topic of social impact, discovering how one Nordic provider's sustainable seafood project might be a taste of things to come for the channel, and looked at how IT providers are tackling their own internal sustainability.
Progress has snowballed since then. To pick just three examples, HP has launched a partner programme around sustainable impact, Atos is helping its customers decarbonise through the introduction of decarbonisation level agreements and Computacenter is ploughing on with installing photovoltaic panels at its regional HQs (including 7,000 at its Hatfield head office - see p28 here.
Known for its generosity, the channel has also ramped up its charitable and not-for-profit endeavours since Covid struck, another facet encompassed by this year's campaign.
Examples include one VAR who is ensuring hospital patients and care home residents can speak to their loved ones by reprovisioning used mobile devices, a former MSP leader who was recently honoured for setting up the Scottish Tech Army, and countless IT suppliers who have joined the Folding@Home initiative.
We are on the hunt for more innovative case studies to cover as we ramp up our coverage in 2021, so please email doug.woodburn@incisivemedia with suggestions or - alternatively - take a look at our awards categories to see if any apply to you or your company.
To ensure we are highlighting and honouring visionaries across the entire channel, the CRN Tech Impact Awards will be split mainly by vendor, distributor and reseller/MSP lines, with a special award for firms specialising in recycling and reuse. Categories cover both internal sustainability, customer projects, and non-profit work. With a maximum wordcount of 600, it's quick and simple to enter.
For more information on how to support the campaign, please email [email protected]