Where IT and "green" ethics meet
December 2007 - In today’s environmentally sensitive world, companies and individuals must ensure that IT equipment is effectively managed from the beginning to the end of its life cycle in order to ensure that it is recycled or destroyed in an eco-friendly way.
Nowadays, the major leaps forward made by companies in terms of IT progress are clear for all to see. But at a time of great ecological initiatives, what is being done about waste - and in particular, electronic and electrical waste which, as we are now hearing, is starting (more than any other kind of waste) to represent a real time bomb?
The average householder in the UK now owns 25 electrical and electronic appliances and the UK still disposes of at least one million tons of electrical waste every year and almost all (90 per cent) of this ends up as landfill. This waste contains many dangerous substances with a potentially harmful impact on the environment, such as cadmium, mercury, lead, aluminium and copper. Waste from the IT industry is among the most dangerous kind, and requires special handling. Monitors and electronic cards in particular top the IT waste pollution list, and require special processing to prevent pollution.
Meanwhile, the pace of replacement of IT and electronic equipment continues to accelerate year on year. Worldwide PC shipments totalled 68.5 million units in Q3 2007 with Western Europe Q3 sales of 13.8 million units, an increase of 17.7 percent on the same period in 2006. In Britain sales were slightly slower than France and Germany but according to Gartner PC shipments in the UK still totalled 2.9 million in Q3 a 13.6 percent increase on the same period in 2006. Technical and functional innovations are leading companies and households to upgrade their equipment before it reaches the end of its life cycle. Products are being scrapped while still in working order. For the environment’s sake, therefore, sorting and reprocessing is becoming a necessity.
Aware of this problem, European legislators have implemented an ambitious plan of action and, in 2003, voted for the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive. The WEEE Directive aims to minimise the impact of electrical and electronic goods on the environment, by increasing re-use and recycling and reducing the amount of WEEE going to landfill. It seeks to achieve this by making producers responsible for financing the collection, treatment, and recovery of waste electrical equipment, and by obliging distributors to allow consumers to return their waste equipment free of charge.
WEEE in a professional context
In the UK, the regulations came into force on 2 January 2007. Producers of electronic and electrical equipment had to join a compliance scheme by 15 March 2007. Following this all producers had to clearly mark electrical and electronic equipment (EEE) from 1 April 2007 and finally full responsibility for treating and recycling household WEEE began on 1 July 2007.
IT hardware life cycle management gets strategic
For companies and official bodies, electronic equipment tracking is thus becoming an unavoidable strategic necessity. For this reason, in response to imperatives from management (General Management, Quality Department, etc.), IT departments are having to find ways of complying with the WEEE directive and of producing precise records of the company’s IT equipment to enable its tracking and processing at the end of its life.
IT Management’s information-based solutions (inventory management and IT services) play a front-line role in equipment tracking. Regardless of the type of structure (simple or complex, single-site or multi-site, national or international), these tools can produce automatic inventories of IT equipment and provide centralised life cycle management: delivery, installation, physical relocation, repairs, scrapping, etc. In this way, the company has constant access to information about the equipment which forms its IT infrastructure, its operational status, its allocation to workers, and its current whereabouts, etc., right up to its final retirement from inventory. At the time of retirement, the fate of the equipment will be specified: scrapping, reuse (for the public sector), return to the manufacturer, etc. Using control panels created to track the equipment, companies can monitor the life cycle of their IT hardware and take appropriate steps to ensure compliance with environmental directives.
IT Management solutions are part of a company’s sustainable development policy
In this way, IT Management solutions not only form a key link in the IT governance chain, but also play a part in companies’ sustainable development policies. Environmental issues are becoming increasingly important in day to day business. The impact of new legislation, coupled with rising levels of concern from customers, means that few organisations can afford to be complacent when it comes to monitoring the environmental impact of business activities. Many organisations specify in their annual business report what they are doing to address the social and environmental consequences of their activities.
It is therefore evident that with regard to IT equipment, businesses need to find a way to trace their equipment life cycle - right through to scrapping or retirement. This is becoming increasingly important for most organisation’s sustainable development policies. IT Management solutions assist in achieving compliance with environmental directives, helping businesses to avoid penalties and play a part in the creation of an eco-friendly image for the organisation.
Once again, technology is stepping up to meet the needs of companies and official bodies in terms of change and compliance!
