A shift in thinking from “life cycle” to “use cycle” can help eliminate e-waste

Instead of seeing ESG programs as an add-on, enterprises are increasingly recognizing that creating a culture of sustainability – and investing in technological advancements to support it – can have positive impacts on the business, brand, and bottom line. And in part one of this blog series, I discussed how to use ESG data strategically, efficiently, and effectively.

Transitioning toward a sustainable economy

Global regulations regarding ESG targets have become stricter, requiring companies to be more accountable for how they address the adverse impacts of their operations. This push for additional accountability is seen in Europe, with environmental directives pushing companies to be more sustainable with their supply chains. The Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD), or CS-Triple-D, is aimed at larger EU enterprises, and will be gradually rolled out, with a compliance deadline starting in July 2027. Across the US, meeting ESG rules also requires a company-wide commitment to change.

Even without regulatory pressure, it can be overwhelming for enterprises to think about the individual elements of ESG – environmental, social, and governance – and how it’s critical to address each interconnected area. Companies can always do more, but one immediate ESG solution that might be overlooked involves auditing your own IT resources. Although it’s only one function within the corporate realm, it underpins everything in an enterprise’s operations.

Assessing the impacts of e-waste 

When considering your company’s IT systems, you need to start with human resources. Every staff member likely uses some hardware to do their day-to-day work – laptops, desktop computers, monitors, and mobile phones – and often more than one of each. Also, routers, servers, storage, adapters, cables – the list seems limitless. It’s not hard to imagine the energy use and e-waste inherent in simply outfitting a company’s internal technology needs, just so people can do their jobs.

But when any of these tangible items reach the end of their life cycle, they’re typically dumped into the landfill. By 2030, it’s projected that e-waste will add up to 82 million tons to global garbage piles. And when you go beyond the immediate environmental impact and consider the social repercussions of disposing of hardware, the problem becomes more complex. E-waste is often shipped to areas where citizens live lower down the socioeconomic ladder. That means vulnerable people, like women and children working in the informal recycling sector, are often exposed to dangerous chemical substances like lead.

All of this is further complicated when the hardware a company needs to replace is remanufactured. Manufacturing the latest laptops or smart phones involves sourcing minerals and rare earth elements. This disrupts the natural landscape and also impacts people who don’t have the means to resist this continuous encroachment.

Shifting from life cycle to use cycle

Ideally, products should be thought of as useful in perpetuity – from manufacturing to the time when valuable materials can be extracted from them for future use. Before enterprises can start putting this ethos into practice, they need a clear accounting of their IT resources. ServiceNow has a system for tracking assets, which provides companies with a solid foundation for strategically managing resources. They can determine not only what assets and systems are consuming in the form of energy but also plan for optimizing their use cycle.

Tracking tools must be robust and extend into all areas of the corporation. Enterprises must first self-assess their sustainability metrics, identify problems, develop a baseline for change, and then continuously report on the improvements. ServiceNow’s workflow engine breaks down siloed data to speed up sustainability reporting and improve the reliability of the results.

Leveraging the power of integration

Currently, companies will still require stacked solutions from multiple software vendors to address carbon management, ESG reporting, SEC reporting, and statutory compliance; however, ServiceNow acts as a powerful integration platform to support it all. It allows enterprises to access data and information across a range of corporate functions and bring it together in one place for further analysis.

Another beneficial outcome is that companies can spend less time trying to decipher disconnected data and dedicate more resources to implementing corrective action plans. Naturally, enterprises can extend these sustainability principles to other areas that go beyond tracking assets to optimize IT resources and reduce e-waste.

As a ServiceNow consulting partner, Capgemini is helping enterprises across industries develop long-term strategies and mobilize programs and practices to help them on their journey to a sustainable future.