A commitment by the Irish government to procure up to 60,000 remanufactured notebooks has been hailed as “the moment sustainable IT has been waiting for”.
Circular Computing and Ireland’s Office of Government Procurement today announced they have agreed a “groundbreaking” partnership to supply 18 Irish government departments with remanufactured HP, Dell and Lenovo notebooks over four years. All the devices will be delivered by reseller Green IT.
It is the first such procurement deal by an EU state.
“Market movement”
Talking to IT Channel Oxygen, Stephen Haskew, Group Director of Sustainability at Circular Computing, characterised the landmark partnership – which is worth up to €30m – as a “market movement”.
“This is the moment sustainable IT has been waiting for,” he said.
“This is evidence that a market wants to move towards sustainable IT – not a customer, but a whole market.
“Until this point, Circular Computing just had amazing customers. We have the East of England Ambulance Service, and have just onboarded the East Midlands Ambulance Service.
“By the end of this year we will have about 40% of the Ambulance Service working with us and using our devices, which proves that remanufactured devices stand up to brand new in a fairly stressful situation.
“So we have great customers.
“But this is a market saying ‘right, we’ve identified that remanufactured has a place in our public procurement, and here’s how you’re going to buy them’.”
“We’ve been getting ready for this moment”
The framework will see Circular Computing supply around 15,000 remanufactured notebooks a year. Does it have the capacity to do this?
“We have an ability in our factory [in UAE] to produce 20,000 units in a given month,” Haskew replied.
“We have the capacity – we’ve just been getting ready for this moment. If we didn’t have the ability to do what is required by the framework, they wouldn’t have awarded it to us. Delivering 1,000 or 2,000 additional units a month is by no means going to put a stress on the business.”
Will the UK follow suit?
Haskew was cautious about the prospect of a similar public sector-wide deal happening in the UK, however, despite the inclusion of Sustainability and Circular IT in the recent TePAS 2 framework.
Circular Computing’s remanufactured notebooks have a BSI kitemark which guarantees they will perform at least as well as equivalent brand-new models. This makes them very different from other flavours of second-user devices, such as refurbished ones, Haskew stressed.
“You’ve got Crown Commercial Service behaving in a very similar way [to Ireland’s Office of Government Procurement], but it hasn’t really got its head around the various states of second user,” he said.
“It had the opportunity to figure that out before it released TePAS 2, and didn’t, and as a result there’s not an awful lot of second-user product going through it.
“Even trade is really confused. By the time I’ve finished saying the word ‘remanufactured’, it’s gone in as ‘refurbished’. We will communicate with the end user. They’ll then say ‘we understand it now’, and then we’ll fulfil it back into the channel and distribution.
“Will [the Irish agreement] be replicated in the UK? If we can get CCS to react, there’s an opportunity for them to get it right, but if they’re going to wait for four years, I don’t think there’s a hope.”
Irish ministers weigh in
The Government of Ireland, through its “Buying Greener” Green Public Procurement Strategy and Action Plan, has set a target that by 2025 a minimum of 80% of newly procured ICT end user products will meet the highest environmental standards including that they will have been remanufactured, Certified to EPEAT Gold or TCO Certified.
Minister for Public Expenditure NDP Delivery and Reform, Paschal Donohoe TD, welcomed the arrangement.
“The National Development Plan outlined our ambitions to transition to a low- carbon society and this framework supports this,” he said.
“This is the first such framework to be established by a central purchasing body in the EU and offers significant environmental benefits, including carbon reduction and resource and water savings as well as value for money.”
Minister of State with responsibility for public procurement and circular economy Ossian Smyth TD, added:
“The public sector now has a way to buy remanufactured notebooks from a trusted source, saving money and avoiding waste. This is a change from previous rules that advised always to buy new products. I’m delighted to see this progress.”
Doug Woodburn is editor of IT Channel Oxygen
