What is sustainability?
Sustainability is a societal goal based on three pillars: the economy, society, and the environment. Informally, these pillars are also known as profit, people, and planet. When you search for the word online, you might find the phrase "Sustainability is the ability to exist and develop without depleting natural resources for the future." It is a long-term solution for meeting our own needs without comprising the needs of future generations. We need to live within the limits of available physical, natural, and social resources.
Sustainability in the IT industry
Let’s connect this definition to the IT industry. There are many ways that sustainability plays a role in IT. Sustainable IT, or Green IT, focuses on minimising the ecological footprint and environmental impact of IT throughout the (device) lifecycle: From manufacturing and transport to usage, management, and disposal.
How do you make your IT sustainable?
E-waste.
What do you do with notebooks and monitors that are no longer in use? Do you throw them away, do you let them sit somewhere in the back of your office, or do you recycle them?
One way of making your IT more sustainable is by reusing or responsibly recycling “old” hardware. This reduces e-waste, which is harmful to the environment. Other industries have been reusing or responsibly recycling for a long time and the IT industry is now playing catch-up.
Carbon emissions.
Did you know that companies have a huge influence on the amount of greenhouse gas emissions? Nowadays, you must not only consider your carbon emissions, but ideally all greenhouse gasses. This is a first step towards reducing your carbon footprint. Think about your direct emissions, but also your indirect emissions. For example, do you already use green energy?
Example sustainable IT solution.
One of our initiatives to become more sustainable lies within our Device as a Service (DAAS) solution. With Project Replay, we take steps to making DAAS more sustainable and with the Replay Services, we ensure that the old devices are being repaired and used again.
One of our goals with Project Replay is to reduce our emissions, map them out and off-set them. Within our Device as a Service offering, we map out our carbon footprint per IT seat based on 4 components: Hardware, logistics, packaging and our ‘Replay Services’. These Replay Services consist of all kinds of services for a safe and secure trade-in of your legacy IT.
After we calculate the CO2 emissions of these components combined, we know the exact carbon footprint our DAAS solution. The next step is to off-set the carbon emissions. That is how we make our DAAS solution more sustainable.
Want to know exactly how we do it? Click here to read more about Device as a Service and sustainability:
