LoudCrowd in Doncaster shows how digital businesses can recycle and renovate equipment to help the environment

Ewan Ogden, digital marketing executive at LoudCrowd, told The Yorkshire Post that this approach enables the business to not only reduce waste but also cuts costs for the business.

He said: “There’s a huge cost impact of getting brand new equipment every few years or whatever.

“It’s much cheaper and more economical to just get new parts and repair and renovate a machine rather than getting something brand new.”

It cuts the carbon footprint associated with making new equipment and then having it delivered.

The business, which has a core team of around seven full-time employees, says that recycling equipment doesn’t impact performance.

Mr Ogden said: “It’s not like we’re taking junk and just making it workable. We’re carefully selecting the machines we work on. Stuff like maybe adding an SSD to make a computer run faster.

“Sometimes we’ll end up making an iMac or something like that run better than it did before.”

LoudCrowd was launched by David Johnson in 2016. It started as an IT firm but the business has grown and now specialises in search engine optimisation, web design and development and graphic design.

Prior to setting the business up, Mr Johnson had a background in repairing and fixing older equipment.

Mr Ogden said: “Our managing director David Johnson’s past before he got into digital marketing was repairing and fixing old equipment. That could be computers, phones, laptops, all that stuff. As he’s grown the business and he’s recruited more and more people, he’s carried forward his skills from his previous work.”

As awareness of the climate crisis increases, businesses need to do whatever they can to help tackle the issue, Mr Ogden says.

Even digital businesses can make a difference with LoudCrowd’s web and email hosting providers going carbon neutral.

“Depending on what plans and packages they take on board they will plant a certain number of trees to offset the running of their servers,” Mr Ogden added.

Everyone has a responsibility to do their bit whether they are in business or not when it comes to tackling the climate crisis, according to Mr Ogden.

“It’s important that we all try and help out as much as possible, whether it’s little or big changes you are making,” he said.

His advice to other companies looking to do their bit for the environment is to sit down with their employees and think about ways in which they can make a positive difference.

Mr Ogden added: “Everyone can easily say there’s not much we can do, we’re not cutting down trees etc. But there is always something that you can do even if it is something simple like recycling office waste.

“There’s something in your business that you can look to improve on. It’s the little things that all add up and it can make a big difference. You don’t have to change your entire business in a particular department.”

Like many other firms, LoudCrowd has adopted hybrid working and encourages staff that live further away from its office to work from home to lessen the impact on the environment.

Mr Ogden said: “The people who are a bit further afield, there is an emphasis for them to work from home more often than not, just to reduce their carbon footprint. Those of us that work quite close to the office are in most days but we try to encourage working from home as much as possible.”

Buying ‘redundant’ machines

The digital marketing firm is “very happy” to purchase equipment that people don’t want any more.

Emma Morris, SEO executive at LoudCrowd, said: “In fact, David still enjoys buying what other people might think of as defunct pieces of equipment and creating a new fully working machine, often for ourselves but also for clients who have realised the environmental impact and cost savings that can be achieved by reusing old equipment that is perfectly good.

“It’s an approach that has now been embraced throughout the whole office – any printing we do for ourselves or clients is done with carbon-based printers using FSC accredited materials, which is also aligned with the World Land Trust.”