BIT & Corporate Social Responsibility

BIT & Corporate Social Responsibility

BIT highly values Corporate Social Responsibility. This is not just a program or a project to BIT, it is embedded in our way of thinking and our way of working. This means that we consider the environment in our activities, but also pay attention to the human aspects within and outside our organisation.

Environment

BIT invests a lot in energy saving. All of BIT's data centers run on green energy, generated from wind. With 100% Dutch wind from Dutch windmills (click here to view the green energy certificate 2020, 2021 and 2022). This renewable energy source has no CO2 side product. Power consumption is taken into account when purchasing equipment. This goes for our own equipment as well as in the recommendations we make to our clients.

The air-conditioning in our data centers uses the outside air and water to keep the temperatures down. The residual heat from the data centers is heated in the adjacent BIT-MeetMe visitor center. And by using closed cold corridors, the cooled air is handled efficiently.

More and more people are choosing for electric cars. BIT encourages this initiative because of the positive contribution it makes to a cleaner environment. BIT installed charging stations to enable visitors with independent access to our data centers to charge their cars for free.

Fair business

Fairtrade stands for fair products and ensures that farmers in developing countries get a fair price for their products and get to work in decent conditions. BIT does the same. They value fair prices and sustainable production methods. That's why, for lunch, we choose organic products with a Fairtrade trademark to support local community initiatives like Ede Fairtrade.

Privacy

We feel like we, as an organisation, carry the responsibility for our services. Aspects, like offering secure services, customer service, protection of client information and privacy are very important to us. We respect the visitors of our website and handle their information with care. That information will not be sold, rented or shared with anyone. A comprehensive privacy statement can be found here.

Transparency and openness is an important factor at BIT. From that perspective, we issue an annual transparency report where we provide information on the number of personal data and notice-and-takedown-requests (NTD) we have received and how we then handled such requests.

We also think the security of our systems is very important. Despite our care for this security, a weak spot is always possible. Of course we would like to receive such findings and, from that point of view, have drawn up a 'Responsible Disclosure'.

We support a variety of initiatives and associations by offering several of our services for free. We sponsor Bits of Freedom, Cacert and HCC for example.

Supporting charities

BIT is at the heart of the community and supports several charities, including the WWF. WWF's mission complements BIT's philosophy. In the past, BIT has hosted the WWF project 'Animal library'. Based on that experience we have decided to move all equipment to the data center. Part of BIT's services is offered as sponsoring.

Working conditions

Every employer is entitled to a healthy and safe working space with the possibility to develop. BIT's employers are central and we stimulate them to use their qualities as best as they can. This strong employment policy enables us to offer good working conditions to our staff. We hire employees with a labour disability or handicap too, for whom we provide good working conditions and facilities. This employment policy results in a low personnel turnover rate (a large number of employees are working at BIT for more than 10 years) and content, motivated workers who feel connected to our organisation.

Community involvement and development

Education
Schools and businesses need each other to offer good vocational training. We regularly coach students in their education and try to convey our passion and knowledge for technology. Next to that, we frequently organise tours in our data centers to give both students and teachers a look behind the scenes.

Development
Due to the impending shortage of IPv4 addresses, it is important to prepare your ISP to implement IPv6. BIT actively takes part in the Dutch IPv6 Taskforce to stimulate this implementation. IPv6 is an integral part of BIT's services. New clients get a range of IPv6 addresses next to their IPv4 ones. BIT supports several hacker events and hacker spaces like OHM2013, SHA2017 and Nurdspace.

Support of several projects
BIT supports a number of projects by supplying a free IPv6 connectivity. For example, we offer two root-name servers (f.root-servers.net of ISC and k.root-servers.nl of RIPE NCC) IPv6 connectivity. We also host the official releases server of Ubuntu Linux (releases.ubuntu.com) and the Dutch mirror (nl.archive.ubuntu.com) via IPv6. We offer a free range of IPv6 addresses and connectivity to AMS-IX and sponsor RIPE NCC with an IPv6 connectivity.

Behavioural Code Abuse Control
The Dutch cloud and hosting sector has launched a behavioural code for abuse control for operators of digital infrastructure. This behavioural code has been developed by a collaboration of different governmental and organisational stakeholders within the Platform for Internet Security. With this behavioural code, the sector wants to contribute to safe and clean internet by protecting networks against cybercrime, abuse and vulnerabilities that can be exploited for abuse. BIT endorses the behavioural code for abuse control and played an important role in the development of the behavioural code.

Dutch Cloud Community

The Dutch Cloud Community is the branch organisation for hosting, cloud, VOIP and managed service providers active in the Dutch market. In January 2021, the Dutch Cloud Community was created from the merger of ISPConnect and DHPA, the two industry organisations in the sector. BIT has committed itself to the code of conduct of the Dutch Cloud Community.

NBIP

Since its founding in 2002, BIT has been a participant of the foundation National Management Organisation of Internet Providers (NBIP), which was established as an executive institute for tap commands. We have been closely involved with initiatives like the NaWas, where participating ISPs jointly address DDoS attacks.

DDA

In 2015 BIT was one of the founding members of the Dutch Datacenter Association (DDA). The DDA connects leaders in the data center market, acts as a market representative, stimulates best practices and education. BIT endorses the Code of Conduct of the DDA.

Would you like to know more?

Please feel free to contact us: +31 318 648 688 or sales@bit.nl