Community

At Lumison we work within the wider community through policies such as our blanket discounts for registered charities, services-in-kind and direct support for a number of charities and NGOs (Non-Governmental Organisations).

We are proud sponsors of a number of arts organisations and events ranging from the Edinburgh Youth and Scottish Chamber Orchestra through to the Edinburgh International Festival and Edinburgh Film Festivals.

Environment

One positive by-product of Lumison building and managing our own datacentre infrastructure is the control this gives us over one of the most carbon intensive components of our services.

We consume literally megawatts of power on a 24x7 basis across our datacentres, and it is therefore crucial that we mitigate the impact of these services on the environment. Whilst some ISPs and network operators purchase ROCs (Renewable Obligation Certificates) or use "Offsetting" to mitigate their impact, we do not believe that alone they can be fairly shown to consistently and clearly achieve their stated aims. There is much controversy surrounding ROCs and Offsetting due to the lack of transparency or globally accepted standards. This means that we do not believe that Offsetting provides a consistent or fair recognition of the environmental impact that is being mitigated.

Despite these problems, Lumison does still aim to encourage the construction of renewable energy sources in the UK through the purchase of 100% of our mains grid power through Green tariffs.

More importantly however, Lumison works to ensure that each and every design decision made through our operations, networks or datacentres is done to minimise waste, energy, and ultimately carbon emissions. These include, amongst other initiatives:

• Use of Ambicool (Glycol-based) energy efficient CRAC (Computer Room Air Conditioning) to reduce energy footprint by 30% compared to traditional systems
• Implementation of evaporative cooling technology to office and switchrooms reducing energy footprint by 90% compared to traditional cassette systems
• Use of heat recovery from datarooms into office areas reducing energy requirements for offices by literally hundreds of thousands of kWh of energy each year
• Power subsystems in the datacentre including Power Factor Correction to ensure efficient power draw from the mains grid
• Paper use minimised through reduced numbers of printers and unnecessary printing
• Recycling of all paper, cardboard, plastic and related products
• Fully WEEE directive compliance for the disposal of electrical waste
• Low energy lighting levels, TFT displays to replace older and less efficient CRTs
• Encouraging energy smart sleep or complete power down for all PCs out of hours