As a sustainability specialist, Astrid’s work centres around increasing sustainable business practices within the Techbuyer group and advocate for positive change within the sector.

A firm believer in the Circular Economy, she heads up a programme of work to make Techbuyer as circular as possible in every area of the business.

Astrid also works with the data centre industry to increase circularity and sustainability with the adoption of heat reuse, more efficient material management, Net-Zero plans and social impact assessments. She chairs the Sustainability Special Interest Group at the Data Centre Alliance and collated the first Sustainability Best Practice document for the association in 2022.

She represents Techbuyer as a full partner on the €4.5 million NW Interreg funded Circular Economy for the Data Centre Industry [CEDaCI] project. This four and-a-half-year initiative covers the UK, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Ireland, Luxembourg, and Belgium. It includes pilots on circular server design, product life extension and recycling and has developed a sustainable decision-making tool for data centre managers.

Internally, Astrid is a member Techbuyer’s UKRI co-funded research team, which looks at the effect of environmental metrics on server performance and will eventually create a virtual data centre twin to maximise efficiency.

As board member of Free ICT Europe, she contributes to work with members of the EU Commission to create a healthy, professional secondary market for IT hardware, software, and maintenance. This encompasses legislation around Circular Economy, Eco-design, Competition and Green procurement.

In the UK, she has given evidence to the Environmental Audit Committee on Parliament TV and continues to work with NGOs like the Green Alliance to make best use of resources in the IT sector. Alongside this, she works with standards revisions and development in the UK, Europe, and the US, helping to develop ISOs on remanufacturing and IT asset management.

Thanks to Astrid’s efforts, Techbuyer won the Circular Economy Organisation of the Year accolade at the IEMA awards 2020 and Sustainable IT Co Most Sustainable Organisation of the Year at the UK IT Industry Awards in 2021.