IT is essential to business. IT is part of everyday life. But it comes at an environmental cost. At Ikonic we are committed to being Carbon Neutral by 2030. But how can your organisation become more environmentally friendly with your IT purchasing?

The answer – Refurbished IT equipment.

The environmental impact of IT

“The Government wants this to be the first generation to leave the natural environment of England in a better state than it inherited, and to help protect and improve the global environment.”

Unfortunately, IT doesn’t traditionally fit into this model, there are three key areas that IT negatively impact the environment, production, electricity usage and disposal.

Production

The production of a computer is a very complicated process with raw materials including gold, ore, glass, steel, carbon, polymers, and other materials. These materials are gathered from different countries throughout the world.

Once the raw materials are collected the individual components are then built-in separate factories before being sent to be a central location to be put together.

The collection of these materials, the transportation and the process of making the components all consume large amounts of fossil fuels and chemicals.

Electricity use

The average PC uses 746 Kilowatts of power each year, more than a refrigerator.  This power consumption combines to the strain on power plants. The amount of electricity needed to power computers contribute to the millions of tons of greenhouse gases that are emitted into the atmosphere each year.

The other issue with electricity is our laziness. Have you ever been the last person in your organisations building at the end of the day? If yes how many computers in sleep mode, or monitors left on do you spot? All these little bad habits are always going to contribute to the damage being done to the environment.

Disposal

Due to the fast pace of the IT industry many organisations will choose to renew their IT hardware after a set number of years. This rapid change means that there are surplus pieces of computer equipment that predominantly being put into landfill.

Beyond landfill there is also the damage that electronic waste (e-waste) can do to the environment. In fact, according to The Ohio State University despite e-waste only making up 2% of rubbish in landfills, it makes up almost 70% of the toxic heavy metals in these landfills.

The answer is refurbished

As well as being significantly cheaper than new refurbished computers are significantly better for the environment than the new model alternatives. It is important to understand that refurbished doesn’t mean second hand. Refurbished computers from Ikonic are refurbished to an extremely high standard and in many cases are indistinguishable from a new model alternative. Equipment bought from Ikonic has been stripped down to the component level, cleaned, rebuilt and tested with market leading software. All our products have 12 months warranty as standard which can be upgraded to three years if required.

Purchasing refurbished for your organisation shows that you are looking out for the environment and has the added benefit of getting a lot more value for your money.