14 DAY TRIAL // Queen Elizabeth II has recently honored a London-based charity group by the name Computer Aid by showing her good opinion of this organization. More precisely, the group has been granted a royal warrant of appointment.
For those who do not speak “blue blood,” this basically means that Computer Aid was officially recognized for the services it provided to Her Majesty the Queen.
Besides, it will from now on be allowed to use the country's royal coat of arms and all the materials it uses as part of its marketing and communications schemes.
Business Green details that this charity group is the first in the United Kingdom to have ever been honored in this manner by Queen Elizabeth II.
According to the same source, the services it provided – and continues to provide – to the Queen boil down to computer recycling.
More precisely, it appears that, over the past half a decade, Computer Aid has collected over 1,400 old machines from the Buckingham Palace, has refurbished them and has then shipped them to schools in Zambia and Chile.
Otherwise put, the group has helped the Buckingham Palace cut down on the amount of e-waste it produces on a yearly basis.
Computer Aid has been around for about 15 years, and has worked with several businesses whose leaders think that old computers should not end up in landfills, but instead be reused. Some of these businesses are Pepsico, British Airways, and Sainsbury's.
Commenting on the group's being granted a royal warrant of appointment, Computer Aid Chief Executive Keith Sonnet said that, “Everyone at Computer Aid is delighted to have been honored in this way and it was a reflection of the high quality service they provide.”
“Computer Aid refurbishes PCs and other ICT equipment for use throughout the world to overcome the disadvantage faced by so many people,” he added.
This London-based charity estimates that, of all the electrical and electronic products that people in the United Kingdom abandon at recycling centers on a yearly basis, some 25% can be reused.
Should this happen, the country would save 170,000 tonnes of resources and cut down on its ecological footprint by 1.1 million tonnes of carbon yearly.