Sustainability by Design: Ray Knight, Atos

Ray Knight does not treat sustainability as a reporting obligation or a reputational exercise. For Ray, Head of Sustainability Services at Atos, it is an engineering challenge, a leadership challenge and, ultimately, a delivery challenge, and he has spent years working to make it a repeatable part of how Atos operates and how its customers benefit.

His internal contribution at Atos has been sustained and wide-ranging. As a founding member of the company's Responsible Business Forum, he has ensured that sustainability considerations are now embedded in investment decisions rather than reviewed after the fact. He leads Atos's internal environmental network, convenes hackathons with customers and suppliers, and has championed net zero and circular economy thinking at executive level, helping to shift sustainability from a side initiative into a core operating principle.

The clearest example of that ambition made real is Atos's work with DEFRA. Serving 30,000 colleagues across the department and its arm's-length bodies, Ray has championed a sustainable digital workplace built around circular principles: analyse, automate, refurbish and repeat. A refurbished-by-default device approach, combined with a performance-based refresh model, reduces carbon and e-waste while maintaining the high standards of service that a major government department requires. Where new devices are unavoidable, a partnership with Circular Computing ensures refurbished hardware is the default. Analytics and automation shift problem resolution earlier in the cycle, reducing reactive ticket handling and cutting avoidable device replacement. As DEFRA's Director of Group Infrastructure and Operations, Edd Parry, has noted, this work has set new standards for government IT, combining reliable service, an uncompromising user experience and sustainability performance that the public sector can be proud of.

Ray Knight's contribution is the demonstration that net zero commitments and high-quality digital services are not in tension. They can and should be built together, and his work with DEFRA is the proof point.

To read more about the techUK President's Awards, visit our page here. Winners will be announced at the techUK Annual Dinner on 30 June.

Read more about our President's Award finalists: 

People Award

• Bringing Technology and Purpose Together: Fiona Dawson, Mayden
• Building a Future Where Disability Is No Barrier to Movement: Dr Malik Haddad, Northeastern University London
• Protecting People Online, at Scale: Robin Tombs, Yoti

Society Award

• Protecting Communities Through Intelligence: Clare Elford, Clue Software
• Putting Human Safety at the Centre of Technology: Dr Laura Bishop, British Standards Institution
• Connected Data, Public Value: Vishal Marria, Quantexa

Economy Award

• From Strategy to Production: Steve Chan, Stealth Labs
• Making Technology Work for Small Business: Laura Burley, Xero
• The Genetics Revolution, Made Real: Professor Sir Peter Donnelly, Genomics

Planet Award

• Sustainability by Design: Ray Knight, Atos
• Turning Buildings into Efficiency Engines: Javier Benitez, Colt Technology Services
• Technology in Service of Nature: Isobel Ashbey, Cambridge Consultants