Schneider Electric this week unveiled a new ‘circular UPS’ offering during a Canalys Forums 2024 event at which circular IT played a starring role.
The power management vendor co-built the offering, which comes with the same warranty as one of its brand-new UPSs, with distributor Ingram Micro – initially for the French market.
French cinema chain CGR was revealed as one of the first customers.
The announcement came as Canalys highlighted circular IT as the one bright spot for an industry that is struggling to make headway on sustainability.
“We’ve obviously told some depressing stories about sustainability and ESG at this event, but circularity is one of those areas we really do see growing,” Canalys Analyst Ben Caddy said during a panel at the event yesterday, echoing IT Channel Oxygen’s efforts to track circular IT through our Second Life Hub.
“We are not Vinted; quality is really important for us”
Schneider Electric is taking a cautious approach to its circular IT efforts to ensure customers have the same experience as with new products, Geoffrey Richard, Schneider Electric’s Circular Economy Director, France, said during a press conference at the event.
“By analogy with our private life, we tend to think that second-hand products are less expensive and lower-quality, and have no warranty,” he said.
“This is not the path we want to follow.
“We are not Vinted – we are not selling garments to people; we are selling products that enable safety and security, that is why quality is really important for us.”
Prior to resell, Schneider Electric’s circular UPS offer encompasses taking back the end-of-life UPS, diagnosis and testing, dismantling and refurbishment of all single critical parts and end of use components such as batteries, switches and LEDs, reassembly and rigorous testing, it said.
Although the vendor is eager to roll the model outside of France, Richard cautioned that the priority is to “know perfectly how to walk before running”.
It chose France as the testbed not only because of the country’s new circularity laws (where public sector bids must contain a minimum of 20% refurbished/reused product), but also because it has 25 factories and 1,500 employees in the country, Richard said.
“Generally speaking the France territory for Schneider is a kind of lab, where we test new things,” he explained to IT Channel Oxygen in a subsequent interview.
“We need to make sure our industrial capacity and capabilities are strong enough to scale up to other geographies, so as not to create customer dissatisfaction. We are targeting specific geographies – the UK is part of the adventure – to initiate some circular economy iterations.”
Schneider Electric claims its refurbished solution helped CGR Cinemas save 11,600 tonnes of CO² emissions.
Doug Woodburn is editor of IT Channel Oxygen
