The EMEA channel will take back 35% of the hardware it sells by 2030 as the “hard limits of reality” of sustainable IT bite, an analyst has predicted.
In his keynote at Canalys Forums EMEA last month, Omdia Senior Analyst Ben Caddy said the datacentre and wider tech industry has this year been “humbled” by three key shortages relating to RAM, energy and public goodwill.
This trio of shortfalls is “challenging our industry’s ability to continue to thrive and grow in the face of the hard limits of reality”, he said.
“The harsh realities of resource constraints give us an essential moment to cut through all of the noise and geopolitics and the acronyms of sustainability and remember its core definition in the first place: the ability of a system or entity to meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs,” Caddy said.
“It’s actually a moment to remember that sustainability is about being more efficient and more resilient.
“And for the channel, there is tremendous opportunity here.”
Specifically, partners are facing fresh opportunities in areas including take back, tech refurbishing, energy-efficient infrastructure and data optimisation services such as tokenomics, FinOps and GreenOps, Caddy said.
“Sheer economic logic”
According to Omdia’s recent Partner 1000 Sustainability Analysis, some 63% of the 100 largest global channel partners now have science-based decarbonisation targets in place.
“We see sustainability comes up in more of the RFPs you get from your customers today than it did a few years ago,” Caddy said.
“And actually, your customers don’t just want to buy sustainable technologies from you; they want to work with companies that are serious about sustainability.”
Echoing comments from the likes of Softcat CEO Graham Charlton, Caddy said RAM pricing is “not going to stabilise anytime soon”.
This is creating a “tremendous opportunity” for partners who are embracing circular IT solutions, both when it comes to take back but also refurbishment, Caddy said.
“We’ve spoken about Computacenter and Advania in the past, but for the vast majority of you in the channel, you can’t afford to build this in-house, which is why we’re seeing increased levels of partnerships and reliance between the IT channel and the IT asset disposition specialists,” he said.
Prioritising sustainability is the “only way” for the channel to achieve resilience, Caddy contended.
Caddy wrapped up his keynote with a prediction.
“35% of all the hardware sold through the EMEA channel will be taken back by partners and the ITAD companies they work with,” he prophesised.
“This is going to be primarily motivated by the sheer economic logic of taking the equipment back, recovering value, and then embracing more circular IT life cycles.”
Doug Woodburn is editor of IT Channel Oxygen
