WORLD FOCUS GLOBAL Environment, Standards, Reuse COVID-19: Have mindsets changed towards circular IT? CEO of specialist refurbishing distributor Flex IT, says lockdown measures have woken many firms up to the value of repurposed hardware as demand soars across Europe. Many weeks of non-production in China due to strict Coronavirus lockdown measures, has caused a surge in companies across Europe demanding refurbished hardware to ensure their teams can continue working from home. Circular and eco-sustainable hardware distributor Flex IT, has experienced significantly increased demand for its products over the past eight weeks, as the supply of new products cannot keep up with demand. <strong>The</strong> firm, headquartered in the Netherlands, but which has offices in France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Belgium, Poland, Finland, Sweden, Bulgaria and the UK, works closely with vendors such as HP, Dell, Apple and Lenovo to buy excess stock and refurbish slightly older laptops, servers and mobile devices to the highest possible standard. Leon Timmermans, Chief Executive of Flex IT, said: “In the last month particularly, the market has exploded – we are one of the few industries that is doing extremely well at the moment. We are humbled that we can provide a circular solution that helps the business continuity of many companies in Europe in this challenging time. “Everybody is suddenly realising that the quality and function of a product is more important than being the latest, shiniest version. A laptop might be five years old, but you can still use it to do whatever you need to do. Demand has accelerated like crazy over the last eight weeks as firms recognise the quality of products available in the circular market,” he explained. “Large resellers across our key geographies are now coming to us, rather than us going to them, asking if we can supply 1,000 laptops here, or 1,000 there, because vendors were at the point of zero production in China and many companies had employees that worked off desktops in the office and no way of working remotely,” Timmermans added. In similar news, Inrego and IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute announced the publication of a new database model to measure the environmental savings of reusing IT. <strong>The</strong> new database is independent and was developed by scientists to calculate environmental savings for IT equipment down to component level. <strong>The</strong> model contains information on many different categories of IT products such as laptops, monitors, smartphones, tablets, printers as well as accessories such as adapters, keyboards and RAM memory. “We have been working on reusing IT equipment for over 25 years, and we see that IT buyers' interest in sustainability is constantly increasing. We are very pleased that we can now share this database model with everyone who is planning to invest in IT, showcasing what economic and environmental savings an investment in reconditioned products would bring. We also have high hopes these types of calculations will become standard so that everyone in the industry can use them,” said Erik Pettersson, Environmental Manager at Inrego. Today, virtually all IT equipment can be refurbished and given a new life resulting in major environmental and financial savings. <strong>The</strong> calculations in the model assume that the reuse of a product results in a similar newly manufactured product not being bought, and therefore not being manufactured. Buying a reused laptop instead of a new one can, for example, save 280 kg of carbon dioxide emissions. Reusing computer monitors offers even greater savings – a massive 520 kg of carbon dioxide emissions on average. <strong>The</strong> new database model, developed by Inrego together with IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute, is unique in its kind as the impact of all components has been analysed, and it can also be easily updated with new products and components as they come out. This gives buyers completely new opportunities to measure the climate impact of their new investments in IT equipment. “We hope this database model will inspire more people and organisations to reuse equipment. <strong>The</strong> idea is that the model will be used by companies who want to calculate the climate benefits of reuse for their customers. It can also be used by organisations that want to measure and see how they can reduce their climate impact by reusing IT products,” said Karin Sanne from IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute. Editor’s Opinion: As the coronavirus pandemic carries on taking its toll on the global economy businesses are looking at new and innovative ways of expanding and recovering their revenue streams. Reusing IT fits with the remanufacturers ethos and enables expansion of services to meet the market demand. ■ 16 <strong>Issue</strong> <strong>331</strong> June 2020
visit www.therecycler.com for all the breaking news GOGREEN! REACH READY 20 05/20 <strong>Issue</strong> <strong>331</strong> June 2020 17
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