Xander Slootweg (photo), CEO of InternetToday and Jamie Scharloo, who is responsible for marketing and communication, explain their organisation's sustainability policy. ‘First, I want to say that DNS Belgium has been a great example to us in the field of sustainability. You've been working on this for a long time in many fields and showing our sector what the possibilities are,’ Xander starts. ‘Everyone thinks of green power and a good work environment when it comes to sustainability. You make it clear that it's much broader and that a lot can be done.’
Thank you! What does Corporate Social Responsibility mean for you?
Xander: ‘CSR can cover many areas: care for your staff, offering them a great workplace, providing fruit at the office, minimising and offsetting carbon emissions, etc. Of course we do all this. In addition we try to promote our engagement by helping organisations that support charities, by joining relevant associations where we can share our knowledge, by sponsoring the local football club.’
‘Sustainability also determines our choice of suppliers. A supplier with sustainable working practices and who supports charities is always preferred. For us, CSR is about making considered choices and using it to influence others.’
What was the motivation to launch your Corporate Social Responsibility initiative?
Xander: ‘The environment itself should be enough motivation, but unfortunately in practice this is not the case. An organisation that supports Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives mostly spends money. For example, we invested in a new building with solar panels and heat pumps. It's expensive but does allow us to cut energy costs and create a pleasant workplace. This may increase employee retention and reduce staff turnover and bring down recruitment and selection costs.’
‘You do the right thing and get all kinds of things in return, but the business case for CSR is still very much a financial picture. Ultimately, we're a commercial company, which means we have to generate turnover to achieve and support sustainable goals.’
'You make choices and decisions, but you only find out what the bigger picture is later.’
How did you build a sustainability strategy?
Xander: ‘Our engagement is based more on personal involvement than a well-considered strategy. You make your choices and decisions and after a while you see you made a great many sustainable choices. You only find out what the bigger picture is later. To say we have a sustainability strategy would be giving us too much credit.’
Jamie: ‘On the other hand, our communication is strategically managed. Branding and image remain important.’
Xander: ‘Exactly. Our CSR communication involves more strategy than our CSR initiatives themselves. And that's necessary, because CSR is an investment. And that implies using CSR to profile your company. We may be slightly more expensive, but our customers know why.’
How do you communicate about sustainability initiatives?
Jamie: ‘We inform customers and the general public about online safety through blog messages, newsletters, on social media, etc. During cybersecurity month, for example, we try to make our customers aware of the risks of the Internet through various messages and how they can further increase their safety online. This is also a form of Corporate Social Responsibility of course.’
Xander: ‘We have a page on our website about CSR. It shows we care about the environment, even though we work in a sector that uses a lot of energy. We explain why we work with Dutch data centres that use outside air for their cooling and plant trees to offset their emissions. This has allowed us to sign up to the Climate Neutral Data Center Pact. We recently gave away trees to new customers and for every tree given, we also planted one in Spain.’
How do you try to make an impact and involve stakeholders, customers, employees in your initiatives?
Xander: ‘A supplier is selected by asking the questions every company should be asking, for example. This makes other organisations aware of their role in terms of sustainability. Customers are reached chiefly through our marketing and communication initiatives. Anyone visiting our new offices immediately picks up on our material choices: a lot of wood, a green wall of moss. The physical environment matches what we say and do.’
Jamie: ‘When we hire new people we show that we're consciously working on CSR, what we mean by it and what we're doing. It acts as an intrinsic motivation for new employees.’
'Our engagement acts as an intrinsic motivation for new employees.’
What are your long-term goals?
Xander: ‘We're currently fully focused on our building, which is being converted into a 'gas-free' workplace. We invested heavily in heat pumps, but not all floors are connected yet. For the rest we're mostly looking for initiatives that we can join. We're relatively small, but in this way we try to exert influence and inspire others.
What impact does CSR have on InternetToday as an organisation?
Xander: ‘As an organisation, we primarily want to deliver quality. You don't need to support sustainable initiatives for this. But if you deliver good quality and you support CSR initiatives, everyone sees you're contributing to a better world. And that's very important.’
Jamie: ‘This can be a reason for customers and new employees to choose us.’
InternetToday is a registrar based in Rotterdam.
Since its establishment in 2001, InternetToday has grown into one of the bigger providers of managed services in the Netherlands and provides IT infrastructure, hosting and cloud solutions, cyber security, etc. to more than 10,000 customers.
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With this article, we support the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.