Why aren't businesses recovering e-waste value?

Only 50% of senior IT business leaders recognise the potential economic value of their organisation’s e-waste, according to a new report from Lenovo.

The ‘Rethinking E-Waste in a Circular Economy’ report shows that while 75% of businesses measure and track e-waste creation annually, there’s a distinct gap in understanding how to recover the value — by selling to businesses that recycle and salvage reusable components and metals, for example.

Only 17.4% of global e-waste is officially documented as formally collected and recycled, according to the report. Our neck of the woods is even worse, with Australian and New Zealand official e-waste collections representing only 9% of the total available amount.

To bring awareness to the potential value of e-waste and the power of the circular economy, Lenovo has announced a collaboration with Holly Ryan, Australian sustainable jeweller and founder of her eponymous jewellery brand. Through this initiative, Ryan has created an exclusive range of rings made from metals from recycled e-waste. ‘Lenovo Precious Metals’ is a set of four unique, one-off designer rings made from metals retrieved from e-waste — gold, silver and platinum — breathing new life into old technology.

The Lenovo Precious Metals one-off designer rings made from e-waste.

This marks a departure from standard organisational sustainability activities and is just one of the ways that Lenovo aims to lessen its impact on the environment, according to Matt Codrington, Managing Director Lenovo ANZ.

“Transitioning to a circular economy has never been more critical for our planet. We must continue finding ways to decouple growth from consumption. At Lenovo, we are committed to lessening our impact on our planet and to reduce, reuse and recycle wherever possible. One area we’re focused on is e-waste management,” he said.

As well as economic value, the report found there is further opportunity to capitalise from a people perspective. Almost nine in 10 (88%) employees say that awareness of their employer’s actions with regard to sustainable end-of-life technology disposal would make them feel more positive toward their employer.

“By 2025, Lenovo will have enabled the recycling and reuse of 362 million kilograms of end-of-life products and 76% of PC parts returned to our service centre will be repaired for future use,” Codrington said.

“One way in which we do this is through our Asset Recovery Services, which help businesses get the most out of their end-of-life hardware.

“Since the beginning of this fiscal year, we have already seen a 43% YoY increase in the number of customers using Lenovo’s Asset Recovery Services. It is fantastic to witness so many of our customers rethinking the life cycle of technology products, ensuring that every recoverable material from every single device can be reused at end of life,” he said.

The company intends to award the Lenovo Precious Metals set of four rings to staff who volunteer in the community as a token of recognition. It will additionally raise funds to support other philanthropic initiatives by auctioning the rings.

Image credit: iStock.com/Arkadiusz Warguła