What can you do to make an impact? How can you make a difference as an organisation that wants to do good? The low-hanging fruit for CIOs is circular IT. We have four topics that can set the wheel in motion:
The Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) entered into force on 5 January 2023. From 2025, the EU rules require larger organisations to publish regular reports on their social and environmental risks and how their activities impact people and the environment.
You have to report on the carbon footprint of your data centres, public cloud use, and the digital workspace. To quote Elvis Presley: “A little less conversation, a little more action, please!” Circular IT group provides customers with reporting data and the KPI’s on carbon avoidance.
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We have to make “refurbished” fashionable by showing that a reconditioned laptop is a more logical and conscious choice. In fashion, it’s called vintage, and in the car industry, it’s “pre-owned”. So why not upgrade the whole concept of second-life digital equipment and use “circular IT” for this purpose?
Why buy a new laptop every three years? Around 1,200 kilos of mined metal-containing earth and almost 200,000 litres of water are needed to produce one new one. That doesn’t add up because the real lifespan is at least six years. There will be a mix: software teams will have newer laptops than the HR team, and some employees will even request a circular device. Let’s Gucci-up the digital workplace and let’s make circular IT hardware popular.
Hopefully, the CEO will show off with a circular slick laptop.
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There is a shift towards using Post-Consumer Recycled materials (PCR) in modern laptops. The aim is to reduce the usage of fossil-based plastics and precious metals. Post-consumer recycled (PCR) are components and products from everyday recycled materials, like aluminium, paper, and plastic bottles.
HP’s Elite Dragonfly was the world’s first notebook with ocean-bound plastics. Purchasing laptops requires a new mindset focused on the total carbon footprint (cradle to grave) and the extended life cycle, resulting in a lower total cost of ownership (TCO).
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Lifecycle management (LCM) in IT is the process of identifying, tracking, and managing the stages in the life of an organisation’s software and hardware. Hardware has a significant impact on the carbon footprint. Modern devices like laptops and phones can last six years, even when companies have a three-year cutoff rule for productivity reasons.
We believe in the next step of LCM: Extended Lifecycle Management, focusing on the first, second and third life of a laptop, tablet, networking or storage equipment inside and outside an organisation. It’s a triple win: environmental, economic and social return.
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1. Environmental benefits by extending the life of laptops, servers, and network equipment towards a circular economy and carbon footprint reduction.
2. Societal benefits by providing second-life laptops to for example refugees, disadvantaged students, children and elderly.
3. Economic benefits by cutting the cost of IT capex investments and reducing the cost of IT ownership by rethinking, reusing and repairing consciously without performance degradation.
Why Circular IT?
How Philippe Vediaud Publicite used refurbished IT to reach their CSRD goals
Founded in France, Philippe Vediaud Publicite operates as an independent leader in the French advertising sector, supporting a national teams of more than 100 people. As the business evolved, leadership sharpened its CSRD policy, putting sustainable IT procurement at the forefront.
Celebrating Close the Gap Nairobi
We visited Kenya to celebrate the launch of Close the Gap Nairobi, and learn about the immense circular opportunities in Kenya.
What are the tax benefits of donating IT hardware to a charity?
In this blog, we explain the tax benefits of donating IT hardware to a charity.
Reinout van Tuyll
CFO
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