AfB social & green IT became the best social firm of the year 2020

23.03.2020

The non-profit IT company AfB was able to prevail in the Europe-wide contest, carried out by Social Firms Europe CEFEC and convinced the jury with the overall concept of social inclusion, fair salaries, ecological sustainability and economic success, thus becoming the winner of the SFE CEFEC Award 2020 for Experienced Social Firm. The non-profit IT service provider employs 440 people across Europe at 19 locations in five countries, 45% of whom are people with disabilities.

In her eulogy, CEFEC President Christiane Haerlin explains the jury's decision: "We awarded you, because you have a European wide net already, you have a high rate of disabled employees and you pay a fair wage, you cater for green economy and you've given us facts and figures which convinced us."

“We would like to thank you for this valuable award, which makes us very proud. The award is above all a recognition of the high quality work of our employees. Many borders are currently being closed in Europe, which is certainly necessary. But even in such difficult times, we strive to think of inclusion across Europe and to act accordingly,” AfB Managing Director Daniel Büchle confirms.

The planned award ceremony should have taken place on March 18, 2020 as part of the LWL meeting of inclusion companies 2020 in Dortmund. Due to the tense situation caused by the Corona virus, it was decided, that the award ceremony will take place, but not on site, but online via a video conference and on Facebook @socialfirmseurope.

About SFE CEFEC
Social Firms Europe CEFEC is an association of European social firms, employment initiatives and social cooperatives that supports and promotes social enterprises across Europe. The SFE CEFEC AWARD announces a best practice example of a social enterprise as well as a promising social start-up.

About AfB gGmbH
AfB Group is Europe's largest non-profit IT company. By refurbishing and marketing old IT hardware (“Refurbishing & Remarketing”), AfB creates jobs for people with disabilities and at the same time helps to save environmental resources. AfB employs 440 people at 19 locations in Germany, Austria, France, Switzerland and Slovakia, 45% of whom are disabled. AfB takes over IT and mobile devices that are no longer required, deletes data located on these devices, makes necessary upgrades and software installations and sells them with a guarantee of at least 12 months. In the past year, through partnerships with around 700 companies, banks, insurance companies and public institutions, AfB processed more than 475,000 used IT devices across Europe and 65% of them were marketed again. This saved 22,900 tons of metals and minerals, 17,000 tons of CO2 and 52,300 MWh of energy.