Presentation
Description
Sidas is a French compagny specialized in the comfort of the feet. Its large product range is composed of soles, feet protection, shoes, ski boots, socks, heated socks and heated soles, etc. in the medical sector but also in the sports and wellness sectors. Operating in 45 countries, Sidas distributes its products online but also in its numerous worldwide stores.
Digital activity
The company mostly sells physical products. As for the digital activities, Sidas distributes online its products, has an important IT stock, servers and logistical equipment.
Good practice targeted
Environmental
To go further
Good practice
The IT manager made the decision to use refurbished materials for the company’s hardware. Today the part of refurbished materials is 40 % of the IT stock which is composed of about 250 computers (PC and laptop PC), of about 40 smartphones, and logistical equipment (touchscreen tablets used for the production, transportation, Wi-Fi access points, etc.).
Starting date of the good practice
2015
Time to implement the good practice
1 year and a half
Tools/partners/suppliers of the good practice
Trade Discount, refurbished computer equipment supplier
Interview of Romain Ferron, IT manager at Sidas
What are the benefits of the project ?
Besides the environmental benefits of the project, we think that this initiative allowed the company to make savings, even though it was not the primary objective. It is also beneficial for Sidas’ brand image. This initiative is in step with the brand strategy that is developped by the company; ecology has always been part of Sidas’ DNA, but now managers take into full consideration the environmental issue by defining special instructions for the projects.
What were the constraints faced by the company ?
Time: refurbished material means an heterogeneous IT stock, and an heterogeneous IT stock means more time to secure the material. As we spread out scripts throughout the entire network, it is much more complicated when the computers are not the same.
Supply: some products are hard to find as refurbished products, like screens or printers. We did not make enquiries of other suppliers than Trade Discount but most of the time it appears that we are limited in the choice of refurbished products.
Technical constraint: refurbished devices, even though they are very powerful, become more rapidly obsolete. For example, the driver of the refurbished device can be incompatible with the Adobe suite and prevent the use of this kind of software programs.
Human constraints: when we made the decision to replace the equipment for second-hand equipment, it generated misunderstanding because some employees felt undervalued or discredited. But once we explained why we did this, it is well accepted.
Which advice would give to another company ?
Communicate and explain the choice of the good practice internally: we established a charter and an internal IT policy, we diffuse videos and newsletters on Teams to justify our ecological choices. There are meetings to explain those strategic choices to the employees and to sketch out what will come concerning the carbon report. Today, these choices are understood and accepted.
Choose your supplier carefully: it is important to have a trustworthy supplier who can propose backup solutions and who can offer good guarantees.
What are the next steps?
To estimate: today we do not have measuring devices to estimate our carbon impact and reduce it. That is our main next step in order to make a real transition.
Communicate: Many behaviors can inadvertently have a negative impact in terms of ecology. Thus we need to communicate information about this issue in order to raise consciousness and to adopt new habits.
Other questions or comments
-