The Green Alliance

It’s no news that e-waste is a growing problem for our global society – with over 57 million tonnes of e-waste filling landfills every year and only 19% of electronics making their way to recycling, it’s clear that we must change our habits where technology is concerned.  

An inquiry into how, in the UK, we handle e-waste and the circular IT economy has been submitted by the Green Alliance to the Environmental Audit Committee (EAC) four years after an initial inquiry was submitted.  

Since this first inquiry, no action has been taking place and so the Green Alliance has decided that further action is required.  

Driving Change Through Evidence-based Inquiry  

As part of the first inquiry, Techbuyer offered evidence and expertise to the EAC, presenting on Parliamentary TV and discussing how policy makers can work to reduce the UK’s contribution to e-waste landfills.  

Techbuyer’s contribution slotted into a broader conversation, covering extended producer responsibility, waste collection models and procedures, consumer take back schemes, accountability and transparency. 

However, despite the pressing nature of sustainability concerns, the first inquiry did not achieve parliamentary action. Several years later, Green Alliance have submitted a new call for inquiry into this issue.  

As part of this inquiry, the EAC have launched a call for evidence on how e-waste is currently handled and how we can improve these methods for a more sustainable future moving forward. 

This is still an issue that we’re incredibly passionate about at Techbuyer, and so we have worked with the Green Alliance to submit new evidence to the EAC, calling for parliamentary action. This evidence details the work that we do for a circular IT economy, as well as the importance of changing IT habits and legislation to allow for a more environmentally friendly IT industry. 

View our evidence on the parliamentary website here.

Implementing a Circular Economy for Electronic Goods 

As part of our evidence, we explored how a circular economy can be nurtured in the technology sector. This is an area where we’re currently seeing a lack of headway – evidence suggests that we’re actually going backwards in terms of circular economy practice, and in 2023 it was reported that we were only 7.3% circular.  

Whilst we recognise that the Government is introducing circular economy legislation and policies, particularly for the Public Sector, there seems to be a disconnect between policy and practice within the IT industry.  

From IT procurement and maintenance, to the disposal of products, circularity is not currently at the forefront of people’s minds. However, there are viable and reliable options to explore circularity in the IT industry that are only growing stronger year on year.  

One core service is IT Asset Disposition (ITAD) which enables businesses to securely and sustainably dispose of IT hardware. ITAD companies look to extend the use phase of technology wherever possible, flooding the refurbished IT market with quality devices and components for reuse, and ethically recycling materials where needed.  

Through ITAD, companies can remain GDPR compliant and protect their business information whilst reducing the extent of e-waste heading to landfill.  

Increasing Confidence in Refurbished IT Hardware  

Another key aspect of a circular IT economy is increasing the confidence of businesses and individuals in refurbished technology, and this has to come with time.  

The more people see refurbished technology being used, and the more standardised IT refurbishers come, the more trust can be placed in this hardware.

The COVID-19 pandemic did a lot for the refurbished market. As the availability of new technology plummeted, many turned to refurbished as the only option – when using the technology, many saw the reliability, performance and quality of refurbished when sourced from reputable providers.  

This allowed refurbished to become a real consideration for many who would have overlooked this option. Now we work with businesses around the world to develop fully refurbished, or even a hybrid, of new and refurbished, solutions for their IT infrastructure.  

This allows companies to extend the lifespan of hardware, maximise their IT budget and aid the circular IT economy.  

However, trust in refurbished IT can be aided by the Government. The Government can help with this by differentiating VAT rates between new and refurbished products and also potentially increasing the write-down period on enterprise IT assets, giving them an ongoing economic value to match their technical shelf life.  

The standard write-down is 3 years, and this mirrors the standard warranty period. With extended warranties disproportionately expensive from the manufacturer, there is an incentive to replace with new equipment. 

We also need market education at scale. In 2020, Techbuyer published a peer-reviewed paper in the IEEE Transactions on Sustainable Computing called “Optimizing Server Refresh Cycles: The Case for Circular Economy with an Aging Moore's Law.” This demonstrated that there is no performance degradation between refurbished and new servers and server components.  

More than that, an immediate past generation can outperform the latest if it is configured correctly. This made the case for product life extension with component level upgrade, even with respect to energy efficiency at use phase.  

However, this fact is still relatively unknown. We need more papers like this and more publicity to give buyers confidence in component level upgrades without compromising on energy efficiency. 

Becoming a More Circular Society  

There is growing awareness of the e-waste problem, however this seems to be tied to specific items like mobile phones. There is less awareness of how this connects to disposable vapes, finger torches, and other disposable electronic items. There also appears to be a disconnect between awareness of e-waste and strategies for dealing with it.  

To be specific, it is not just about collection but also about repair and repairability of items, passing items on and avoiding single-use electronics. There seems to be a public opinion that there is little the individual can do about e-waste other than take your items to a recycling centre. 

Techbuyer is a provider of sustainable IT solutions covering all stages of IT decision making – procurement, maintenance and disposal. We work with businesses to reduce the environmental impact of their IT hardware whilst also delivering high-performance, high-quality solutions for their technology needs. Find out more about our life cycle services here.  

Stay tuned to hear about the developments from this inquiry and sign up for our newsletter to stay up to date with any other IT sustainability-related news.