Eco-Friendly Workspace
Doing the right thing for the environment now makes good business sense
At the start of this century, taking steps to help the environment often meant businesses chose more expensive ways to manufacture, slower delivery times and losing a competitive advantage. But changes in geopolitical priorities have led to some exciting innovations that are easy to adopt, with products that work more efficiently and have less waste at the end of their useful life-span.
Just Fix IT has always been committed to finding ways to reduce our environmental footprint. When we moved into our current Kitchener office space, we worked closely with energy efficiency experts and implemented a number of retrofits including changing out the office with low energy lightbulbs and optimizing the power for our racks and network infrastructure. Our employees also have access to an electric car charging station.
We have also chosen hardware partners who are excited about innovation and value the environment. We have added steps to build towards a sustainable supply chain that improves the options for our customers:
- Customers requesting desktops were offered energy-star compliant workstation models from trusted vendors, or the low-profile option of a Zero IT compute stick.
- We look for products that are built to last. We expect 3-5 yrs (or more), instead of a mere 1-2 yrs, making the capital investment go further, so it is better value to upgrade with extra RAM and hard drives, instead of discarding.
- Laptops and workstations are sourced from partners like Dell and Lenovo, that have globally reduced the use of one-time plastics (such as shrink-wrap or Styrofoam) in their packaging, instead using strengthened cardboard where possible, so that more of the box is recyclable.
- With a sustainable supply chain, the end of life of hardware is also considered, so that a monitor or a computer can be disassembled into sections that maximize reuse and recycling – sending plastics one way, metal chassis another and circuit boards with their rare earth elements another.
These many micro-decisions are then combined during our procurement as we provide eco-friendly options for our customers and our own internal needs.
Our environmental focus is demonstrated in the development of the Zero IT Compute Stick.
Lean, Clean & Green -the Zero IT Workstation – Here is a fully-capable Windows 10 office computer that is about the size of a TV remote – consuming 90% less power in use than a traditional desktop.
By migrating the applications and much of the computing processing power to the JFx Private Cloud, the Zero IT compute stick is built to be lean and green – but still able to support an HD monitor screen, Bluetooth keyboard, mouse and wifi connectivity.
Our customers find their users love how little space it takes up on the desk, and the management loves the reduced cost. The clean styling and easy replacement reduces failure and downtime. The use of Remote Desktop service (RDS) provides users with the Windows desktop they are used to combined with standardized user profiles to get rid of clutter and keeps files safe on the server instead of in mystery local folders. Read more about the improved security of standardized user profiles here (**link to subproduct 1a).
Don’t throw out – reuse: The lower desktop processor demands of a 100% private cloud server design also allows customer to REUSE desktop machines that would normally buckle under the processing requirements of the modern Win 10 office applications. Running the Remote Desktop client with a reduced resource requirement gives a new life for aging Windows 7 machines that were due to be thrown away Jan 2020 (when Microsoft stopped supporting the operating system). This repurposing helps customers to bridge a gap until they are ready to fully move over to the Zero IT Compute Stick. The RDS session adds a security layer on top of the Windows 7 local OS, so that the applications and data house in the private cloud are partitioned from any local vulnerability.
Talk with a Professional
Don’t hesitate to reach out and contact us directly. One of our team members will be happy to contact you back and start working with you to find the right solution for your company.