Essent’s obsolete data centre infrastructure gets a new lease of life thanks to Brand-Rex

Headquartered in the city of ‘s-Hertogenbosch in the southern Netherlands, Essent, part of the German RWE

(Rheinisch-Westfälisches Elektrizitätswerk) Group, is the largest energy company in the country. It provides heat

and other related services and has a history of gas supply dating back over 150 years.

Essent has developed a rigorous corporate social responsibility (CSR) agenda and is aiming to supply all of its

energy CO2-neutral by 2050.

C A S E S T U DY: E S S E N T

Recognising the fact that the growth of the worldwide population together

with increasing prosperity are forcing the demand for raw materials

upward, Essent recycles wherever and whenever it can.

Having decided to consolidate its data centre operations into the RWE Data

Centre in Germany, Essent had to decommission two existing facilities in

Landgraaf and Tilburg. This meant that the now obsolete cabling, servers,

racks, power distribution units (PDU’s) and cable management needed to

be removed.

Both Essent and Brand-Rex have a strong focus on minimising waste

decided to recycle as much as possible of the waste resulting from the

decommissioning of the current Essent Data Centres.

cabling infrastructure at other customers’ sites and so took the lead in this

ambitious project to sustainably dispose of the existing infrastructure.

Marco Spoel, maintenance and support manager at Essent commented,

‘Having a sustainable IT infrastructure is an important companywide

objective and it was therefore logical for us to want to do this. Essent’s

Green-IT achievement was rewarded with the number one position in

Gartner’s Green-IT benchmark in both 2010 and 2012.’

Brand-Rex has a long history of environmental awareness and boasts

industry leading green credentials. In 2011 it announced that its global

organisational and operational activities had achieved Carbon Neutral

Status in accordance with PAS 2060 and it was subsequently announced as

a winner at the 2011 and 2013 VIBES Environment Management Awards.

More recently Brand-Rex was named runner-up to Dell as Manufacturer

of the Year at the Green IT Awards 2013, which reward organisations that

environmental performance over the preceding 12 months.

Erwin Deeben of Brand-Rex said, “As natural resources will become

increasingly scarce in the future it is key for us all to explore possibilities such as

urban mining and recycling of end-of life, or end of support

cabling infrastructures.”

Asked why he thought Brand-Rex could add value to the project, Spoel

replied, “There are many similarities between our two companies in terms of

our environmental principles. Also, much of the decommissioned equipment

from the Data Centres contains raw materials found in Brand-Rex products and

we hope that they can be used for these purposes again,

in the spirit of a “cascading ” approach to material use.

Erwin Deeben, and his team would devise and implement a seamless process.”

After this the containers where collected from site by recycling partner

and waste management specialist, Van Gansewinkel, and transported to

a recycling facility in Helden, where they were processed to be recycled

or used for the generation of energy.

Under Brand-Rex leadership, a massive 91 per cent of the products retrieved

from site have been reused, with the main proportion comprising of power

cables, unshielded twisted pair copper cable and steel. Products that were

The entire project achieved a positive revenue stream after all costs were

deducted, meaning that Essent’s original budget for the project was

unused. Essent and Brand-Rex are now reinvesting this sum into sponsoring

panels - via 1miljoenwatt.nl - to the “Playing for Success” initiative.

“This process has proven that the disposal of network infrastructure products

can be carried out in a way that is economically viable, clean and green and

therefore sustainable,’ concluded Erwin Deeben. Essent is delighted with

the results and we look forward to using our experience here to help other

businesses achieve similar results in the future.”

C A S E S T U DY: E S S E N T

united kingdomtel: +44 (0) 1592 772124 web: www.brand-rex.com email: marketing@brand-rex.com

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The entire project achieved a positive revenue stream after all costs were deducted, meaning that Essent’s

original budget for the project was unused. Essent and Brand-Rex are now reinvesting this sum into

via 1miljoenwatt.nl - to the “Playing for Success” initiative.