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Purchase equipment that is upgradable and recyclable

COMPUTER EQUIPMENT AND ACCESSORIES

Segment    Family    Class

43

21

0

SDG Alignment

9. Build Resilient Infrastructure, Promote Inclusive and Sustainable Industrialization and Foster Innovation

SDG Target

9.4

Target Description

By 2030, upgrade infrastructure and retrofit industries to make them sustainable, with increased resource-use efficiency and greater adoption of clean and environmentally sound technologies and industrial processes, with all countries taking action in accordance with their respective capabilities

Level of Effort

Level of Effort Scale

2

1 -Quick Wins: solution involves adding criteria for the good or service being purchased (ex: certifications), minimal internal process changes.

2 -Long Term Adoption: solution requires some changes to internal processes and/or more capital investment (ex: digital transformation to reduce paper use).

3 – Disruptive Opportunities: requires significant investment and changes to internal processes (ex: retrofitting building)

Category Assessment

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Assessment

• Assess the total life cycle cost of equipment (purchase cost, deployment cost, operating cost, disposal cost).

• Identify the volume of equipment currently in production or in-use and the volume percentage of those equipment in use.

• Identify the frequency of maintenance and retired state of equipment, and confirm comparable maintenance cost of competing products. Use the European Union life cycle cost analysis for different equipment (link provided in resources)

• Analyze the environmental impact and score for life cycle management for other equipment

• Search for purchasing alternatives to your equipment that are recyclable.

Opportunity Identification 

Business:
Reduce the cost of purchasing new equipment. Promote a brand image based on goodwill and develop scope to market such e-waste management of products.


Sustainability:
Proper E-waste management reduces the quantity shipped to developing countries for disposal, where unsafe practices often lead to toxic substances found in the equipment (lead, mercury) contaminate the water systems and cause health concerns.

Strategy Build & Execution

• Use the environmental impact calculator for life cycle management to evaluate the commercial and environmental impact of switching. (Linked in resources)

• Build and schedule system dependencies and the logistics of the equipment, upgrading, lifecycle, and recycling process.

• Check supplier reports, certifications, and qualifications to identify whether recycling initiatives tallies with their qualifications and credentials.

• Purchase products monitor quality and supplier certifications regularly.

Supplier Negotiation & Contract

• Establish Contract Supplier Performance Measures where possible.

• Ask the supplier for visibility into conflict minerals reporting, ISO-14001, ISO 9001, and ROHS (Restriction of Hazardous Substances) compliance. If commercially feasible, consider negotiating the downstream, product end of life recuperation program with the supplier. Depending on the OEM/reseller, they might derive value in receiving technology end of life.

• Include quality assurance and warranty clauses in the contract to ensure an extended higher quality of the equipment.

• Consider purchasing in bulk to maximize leverage.

Supplier Performance & Management

Review the equipment's criticality and perform an impact assessment to ensure dependencies are understood. Once after, create a contingency plan to upgrade systems, which includes risk mitigation clauses in the contract (for example, if the equipment are servers and the system shuts down, provision of switching to a backup server automatically)

Resource Links

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