Empowering Britain with sustainable & open source technology.
A non-profit start-up based in Newcastle upon Tyne, GreenCore helps organisations reduce their environmental footprint by recycling technology and promoting open source solutions, saving money and contributing to a healthier, more ethical planet.
Free & Open Source Software
Refurbish and Reuse
From whole devices to individual components, we give technology a new lease of life—helping budget- and environment-conscious communities and organisations thrive.
We guarantee donors peace of mind with certified data erasure before reuse or recycling.
Donors may also be eligible for Corporate Tax relief and/or VAT recovery when they choose our green decommissioning service for surplus hardware.*
*Subject to individual circumstances and applicable HMRC guidelines.
Open Source Advocacy
We promote open source technologies as a practical alternative to costly proprietary software. By adopting open standards and community-driven solutions, organisations can reduce licensing fees, avoid vendor lock-in, and extend the lifespan of existing hardware.
Our team provides guidance on selecting, deploying and maintaining open source tools & bespoke solutions that meet real business and community needs — from office productivity & management to secure communications. We also run training sessions and workshops so workers, students, and communities gain the confidence to make the most of these solutions both in the office and at home.
Join a global movement built on transparency, collaboration, and sustainability.
Training and Upskilling
Technology is only part of the solution - people need the knowledge and skills to use it effectively. Our training programmes are designed to empower people with practical digital and green tech skills.
Providing lab environments, interactive training courses, and in-person training we help communities, organisations, and businesses gain proper digital literacy including information security skills, all centered around Free* and Open Source Software.
* “Free software” means software that respects users' freedom and community. Roughly, it means that the users have the freedom to run, copy, distribute, study, change and improve the software. Thus, “free software” is a matter of liberty, not price." -- GNU Philosophy
We only have one planet, and we must do our best to preserve it for future generations. E-waste is a major issue within Britain's disposable tech culture…
Danyal. Head of GreenCore
of e-waste per person
The GreenCore Platform
Our open source platform providing services for the community and a template to empower organisations.
Through our platform we promote privacy-respecting software and encourage digital habits that give people the power to control their own data while maintaining privacy.
We provide tools for organisation, collaboration, communication, and learning code & administration on real systems built on GNU/Linux, OpenBSD, FreeBSD, and OmniOS.
We are a non-profit company limited by guarantee. Our two linked missions are to stop technology going to landfill because a vendor EOLs (End of Life) it, and to help communities, organisations, and SMBs make use of that equipment, extending its life with Free (libre) & Open Source technology.
An extension of these objectives is to provide information and training on open source technology to empower people to free themselves from the shackles of proprietary vendors.
- Donations - whether it's IT equipment or monetary contributions from the people, communities, and organisations we partner with.
- Support Contracts - organisations can pay for consultancy & support packages which feeds back into GreenCore, allowing us to expand and provide more community services and advocacy.
Succinctly:
- Global corporations ('big tech') may own a huge number of datacentres around the world and provide convenience for users and organisations, but they are often ethically questionable.
- Do you really have full control of your data in these clouds? They own the hardware, run the infrastructure, and may use your data without your knowledge (hidden in endless pages of legal texts).
- In traditional IT structures, almost all companies self-hosted their infrastructure and data. The arguments against this in the cloud era was that it was too expensive to maintain, mostly because of vendor lock-in, licensing, and subscription costs as well as forced hardware upgrades to the latest certified models. These same companies run global cloud networks now, finding new ways to lock you into their ecosystems.
By hosting your own infrastructure, either on-premises and/or in a datacentre, you have complete control over your data and costs.
'AI' (Mostly LLMs, Large Language Models) are certainly fashionable at the moment, and platforms such as OpenAI can yield amazing results at times - expert systems that can be exceptionally useful tools, but they do make mistakes. Microsoft recently added 'AI' to Excel and had to add a disclaimer saying not to use it in 'any task requiring accuracy or reproducibility'! (Source)
LLMs also use a lot of computational energy even for simple queries which we of course would not consider green tech.
AI is not a replacement for the human brain. People without any programming experience can use AI to create software, but they have no idea how it actually works or how to fix the multitude of bugs in the resulting code. Knowledge is paramount, and we hope to help provide that knowledge.
Latest News
Your donations help fuel the community work we do
Whether it's refurbishing hardware for communities, training people in FOSS, or maintaining free, privacy-first services for the community we appreciate donations (both in surplus IT equipment and funds) to keep going.
Please [contact us] if you think you or your organisation can help or donate using the details below.
- Name: GreenCore
- Sort Code: 08-92-50
- Account Number: 63349724
- Bank Name: The Co-operative Bank p.l.c.
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