AfB non-profit GmbH

AfB non-profit GmbH
legal form	non-profit GmbH (gGmbH)
founding	2004
Seat	Düren , Germany
management	Daniel Büchle, Paul Cvilak ( founder ), Yvonne Cvilak
Number of employees	440
Branch	Information technology
Website	www.afb-group.de

AfB non-profit GmbH is a German company that was founded by Paul Cvilak in 2004 as Europe's first non-profit IT system house . AfB stands for “work for people with disabilities”.

History of the company

Foundation of the AfB non-profit GmbH on October 4th, 2004 in Ettlingen and warehouse in Emmendingen near Freiburg . The goal of founder and managing director Paul Cvilak was and is to use IT remarketing to save resources and "create 500 jobs for people with disabilities in the IT sector". In 2009 Daniel Büchle was added as a further managing director and in 2020 Yvonne Cvilak as managing director. AfB Social & Green IT is "now Europe's largest non-profit IT company".

Hardware collection by truck, AfB - social & green IT

Partners & cooperations

The AfB is a partner of over 400 large companies. A cooperation it was working with Telefónica Germany and the NABU more phones , smartphones and tablets the recycling supply. Together with Umicore, the Afb took care of the recycling and disposal of old devices. Telefónica donates the proceeds to NABU. In a cooperation with Otto (GmbH & Co KG) , 8,093 IT devices were taken over and processed from January 2014 to January 2016. Otto took on the sponsorship of 2 workplaces for people with disabilities. The Internet service provider 1 & 1 has its disused servers and other electronic waste collected and recycled by AfB. In 2015 it was around 100 tons of hardware. Between 2016 and 2020, Bertelsmann took over 2,550 retired IT devices (20.4 tons). The cooperation has existed since 2013. Lidl and AfB have been doing good for the environment and society since around 2010 . In 2019, Lidl was able to save 500,000 kWh of energy through the partnership and more jobs were created. A cooperation with Boehringer Ingelheim has existed since 2016 . As a result, 471,498 kg of iron equivalents, 416,136 kg of CO ₂ equivalents and 1,246,144 kWh of energy were saved by July 2019 .

Prizes & awards

2012 German Sustainability Award, Germany's most sustainable future strategy (SME)

2014 winner of the German Business Innovation Prize

2014 3rd place state inclusion award, Baden-Württemberg

2017 Medal of Merit of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany for company founder Paul Cvilak

2018 Rudolf Freudenberg Prize: Special prize for an innovative and sustainable concept

2019 project sustainability

2020 Europe's social enterprise of the year 2020

Employees and locations

View into the production / processing of AfB - social & green IT

While 152 employees were still working for AfB gGmbH in 2011, the number of employees in 2020 was 440. The number of employees with handicaps is most recently 45%.

Shop of AfB - social & green IT in the Arcaden Cologne

After the establishment in Ettlingen, the first AfB branch outside Baden-Württemberg was added in 2007 , after Cologne and Stuttgart with Nuremberg . In 2011 the company had 9 locations in Germany and Austria . In 2020 there were 19 locations in five countries - France , Switzerland and Slovakia were added .

Processed and marketed used equipment

In 2019, 475,000 IT and mobile devices with a total weight of more than 2,500 tons were processed, 66% of which could be marketed again. By remarketing and recycling the devices, 16,440 tonnes of raw materials (iron equivalents), 11,600 tonnes of CO ₂ and 36,560 megawatt hours of energy were saved compared to new production . This compensated for the average annual emissions of 4,640 cars in Germany and the electricity consumption of 15,233 two-person households.