Environment & Sustainability

How Etherlive is working to make events more sustainable

Working primarily in the temporary events area the impact of our activities is a key concern. Minimising environmental impact starts from the initial design work, for example looking at minimising cabling and transportation right through until the final derig where cable and fibre are removed and either re-used on the next event or recycled appropriately.

Wherever possible all of our equipment is reused on multiple events and if possible we try to arrange semi-permanent installation of optic fibre and cable for events which are going to use the same location for several years.

We are also working closely with other suppliers to develop solutions that can help in other ways such as power and environmental monitoring, along with shared core infrastructure and centralised management to reduce the level of staffing on sites.

Other specific examples to reduce environmental impact include:

• Cabling – Etherlive deploys around 200km of cable each year. Because of the way customer sites work and the budgets available, rewinding every bit of cable, testing it, and re-stocking isn’t cost effective. Instead, where cable cannot be reused it is 100% recycled at the end of each deployment.
• Zip ties – Event sites use a lot of zip ties, however, currently no cost-effective bio-degradable units are available so we are trying several temporary alternative methods which can be re-used.
• Journeys to customers and sites – Being nationwide we do travel a lot of miles. We use a van sharing scheme where possible and use public transport for most crew.
• Internally we operate as paper-free as possible using electronic systems for invoicing, expenses, payroll, suppliers and HR.

Longer term we hope to be able to move to electric vehicles for transportation and remove the use of consumable items such as plastic zip ties.