Sustainability


“Almost two-thirds of the UK’s largest companies have pledged to reach net zero by 2050, and 87 of the 100 largest listed


companies have signed up to the BRC Roadmap to reach net zero by 2040.”


Let’s take the humble laptop as an example. Tree in five UK


workers use a laptop or desktop device at work; each one of those new laptops costs 331 kg of CO2, uses 190,000 litres of water, and requires 1,200 kg of earth and rock to be mined all before it’s taken out of the box. Now considering that by 2028, the number of laptops sold in the UK alone is expected to hit 4.2 million units; that’s some 1.4 million metric tons of CO2 pumped into the atmosphere each year from the purchase of new devices. If someone were to offset that number using a popular approach,


such as planting trees, we would need to plant around 56 million trees every year, just to cancel out the carbon cost of all those new laptops. To put that in perspective, there’s estimated to be around 3 billion trees currently in the UK today. Framed this way, it’s easy to see why carbon offsetting is severely limited in its capacity to cancel out the ongoing cost of replacing, let alone powering, the UK’s IT infrastructure.


Could remanufacturing be a silver bullet? Not many people realise that by far the most carbon-intensive part of a laptop’s life is when it’s being made. More than 75% of a laptop’s carbon footprint is attributed to the manufacturing process, which makes how we source them, and how long we keep them, immensely important. Sustainable IT considers the entire life cycle of IT products,


ensuring responsible sourcing of materials, and ethical manufacturing practices. Last year, we asked Cranfield University to conduct a full lifecycle analysis of our own remanufactured laptops and found that they produce over 15 times less CO2 during production compared to an average new laptop. Tat means the decision to buy a remanufactured laptop cuts the carbon cost of acquiring each device down from 331kg to just


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15kg. Tat makes the maths very different; 63,000 metric tons of CO2 every year. If we could as a country rethink the way we buy workplace laptops, we would collectively have taken a significant step towards achieving our country’s net zero pledge.


The bottom line In the world of sustainability, remanufacturing is a rare win-win- win solution. Te first win is the climate cost; by removing the need to buy new, it carries a significantly reduced carbon footprint, 15 times less. Te second is the financial cost; it costs less than buying new, up to 40% less in some cases. Te third is the quality- of-life cost; by converting products to like or better than new appearance and performance, they are indistinguishable from an average new laptop. Unless you’re an architect or working in a film studio, most of


the UK’s laptop-using workforce do not need a brand-new, full- spec laptop. Yes, you will always get some employees asking for the latest tech, but when you look at what they’re using it for, most would not see any discernible differences on a 2-year-old model forensically engineered to look and perform better than new. ESG is increasingly high up the corporate agenda, with 45%


of the UK’s largest companies now having an ESG measure in executive pay. IT bosses who can contribute to that success stand to earn the gratitude of those responsible for addressing their company’s carbon footprint. Starting the journey to net zero is the hardest step of all, and


it’s great to see so many businesses have done just that by making a cast iron carbon pledge. What’s needed now, is smart ideas, and swiſt action, and sustainable IT has all the answers today to help business leaders show progress almost overnight.


March/April 2024 | 41


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