digital sustainability remober

Digital responsibility: 6 principles for a more virtuous IT asset management

What is Digital Responsibility? With the digitalisation of the working world, the challenges related to the use of professional electronic equipment and its waste (WEEE) are constantly growing. Reuse is an effective solution for your IT asset management, allowing you to extend the life cycle of your equipment, to prevent the production of waste and to conduct responsible purchasing policies.

In this article, Remober gives you 6 principles that can help you in this virtuous process!

Defining objectives according to a responsible digital approach

Following the principles of CSR, i.e. having positive economic, ecological and societal goals, facilitates the implementation of such a process.

Your objectives should be to reduce costs, reduce breakage and recover your equipment after use, i.e. to optimise your costs. From an ecological point of view, the idea is to reduce your ecological footprint and the production of WEEE. From a societal point of view, this approach should make it possible to respond to RGPD issues and to guarantee digital inclusion.

Define a clear scope and stakeholders

A key element in the success of a more virtuous Green IT approach is to work jointly with the departments concerned: IT purchasing, IT, CSR, finance, etc. As the saying goes, “together we go further”.   The management of IT assets is highly variable and depends on the type of professional IT equipment, either “general public” such as corporate smartphones or pro tablets, or “specialised” equipment such as barcode devices or medical devices. Sometimes centralised, sometimes multi-site, a good delimitation of the perimeters facilitates your mobile fleet management.

Complete your fleet at a lower cost thanks to refurbished equipment

The deployment of your mobile fleet must be based on precise acquisition criteria. It is important to ensure the reliability and durability (lifespan, obsolescence, availability on the new or second-hand market) of the devices. Certain labels guarantee these criteria, such as EPEAT, Blue Angels, TCO, etc.

To complete your fleet, renting is a good alternative to buying new. Buying reconditioned equipment also allows you to deal with potential manufacturer discontinuities, to make savings (-25% to 75%) and to reduce your environmental impact.

Extending the life of your equipment through maintenance

When you know that 90% of equipment is repairable (excluding motherboards), mobile maintenance often makes it possible to extend the useful life of your professional IT equipment, reduce the consumption of new equipment and reduce the production of WEEE. It is therefore necessary to carry out a real “repair diagnosis” in order to find out whether the product can be repaired before it is, all too often, sent directly for recycling.

Responsible digital technology and disposal!

At the end of your product roadmap, don’t hesitate to opt for a mobile fleet buy-back: audit, data erasure, and reuse… This alternative to recycling allows equipment to have a second life thanks to the resale of reconditioned equipment, rental, or donations. This alternative to recycling allows equipment to have a second life thanks to the resale of reconditioned equipment, leasing, donations, etc. These takeovers also allow you to receive a financial revaluation (5 to 10% of the new price) to finance your other projects.

Involve your employees

Raising user awareness plays an important role in encouraging the proper use of equipment. It is important to educate employees about repairing and reusing products because many people buy second-hand equipment for their personal use.