SCC has set its sights on becoming the UK’s largest OEM-certified refurbisher as it ramps up its decarbonisation efforts.
The Birmingham-based IT group in August had its near and long-term decarbonisation targets validated by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), bringing it in line with listed peers Computacenter and Softcat.
Adrian Saint joined SCC in January to head up its ‘Recyclea’ business, with a remit of shifting its focus beyond recycling to also encompass refurbishment.
Since then, SCC in April became the first UK partner to bag ‘Certified Refurbished Licensing’ status with HP, a feat Saint said it is looking to replicate with Dell, Lenovo, Apple and Microsoft.
“The bit that excites me, which is why I’m here, is the refurbishment piece,” Saint told IT Channel Oxygen.
“We want to be the largest OEM-certified refurbisher in the UK.
“That’s about us aiming to produce to OEM standards, which as far as I’m concerned is the highest level we can get to.”
“The SBTi connection is that this is the biggest thing we can influence directly in terms of the channel,” added Alex Groves, Head of Sustainability at SCC
“Even though the OEMs are doing great work to reduce the footprint of new, the footprint for refurbished kit is so much lower than new.”
Vying for a vendor clean sweep
Already one of just two HP UK Certified Refurbished Licensing partners alongside Converge (formerly Stone), SCC is poised to imminently ink a similar agreement with Dell, Saint indicated.
“They’re inviting their Titanium partners to be refurbishers, rather than going out to the usual big boys like Foxway,” Saint explained, adding that SCC plans to transplant both its HP and Dell agreements to its French operation.
Lenovo, as well as Apple and Microsoft, could follow suit once SCC gains the R2v3 standard, an environmental accreditation Saint said is only held by 8-9 UK organisations including Computacenter and Simms.
“We’ll hopefully be the first to be refurbishing, and have our R2v3,” he explained.
“It’s really the key as it unlocks being able to provide refurbished equipment for other manufacturers; Lenovo have stipulated we need it, and HP have said we need it by next November.
“The first conversations with Apple are happening today, and Microsoft are interested.
“In 12 months’ time, I’d like to be able to report we’ve got those five OEMs on board and are on our way to becoming the largest UK-based refurbisher of IT equipment, so I dare to dream.”
‘Our role is almost a middleman’
Refurb is one lever SCC can pull as it pursues its newly validated SBTi targets.
The £3.8bn-revenue reseller and services firm has committed to halving Scope 1 and 2 emissions, as well as emissions from six Scope 3 categories, by 2030 (from a 2020 base year). Its long-term 2040 target calls for 90% cuts on the same basis.
SCC is working hard to engage with its supply chain, Groves claimed.
“Like everyone in the channel, our footprint is in what we buy and sell, so our role is almost that of a middleman to communicate back and forth between the customer and the vendors and distributors,” he said.
“We’re not going to do this on our own – 99% of our footprint is in Scope 3. But what we can do is what we’re doing with Recyclea and extending the life of kit.”
SCC competitor Computacenter – which had its SBTi goals validated in 2023 – is also ramping up its circular IT efforts, last year setting a new 1:1 device recovery goal. Softcat, which got the SBTi nod in 2022, last September unveiled a new kilogram-to-kilogram takeback aspiration.
“I do a lot of car analogies”
The rise of second-life kit made the headlines earlier this year when Atos bagged a £150m DEFRA device management tender in partnership with laptop remanufacturer Circular Computing.
Made in the UAE, Circular Computing’s devices come with a BSI-backed warranty.
Saint was quick to praise the Circular Computing team while pointing out the advantages of SCC’s model.
“I do a lot of car analogies,” he said.
“If I was going to buy a three-year old BMW, I would want a BMW-approved used car that’s been serviced by BMW in the dealership, with BMW parts.
“That’s what we’re doing. We’re remanufacturing HP and Dell equipment using HP and Dell parts, warranties and engineers from facilities in the UK. We’re not shipping stuff half-way around the world – typically it’s UK equipment that’s come back from a customer, has been refurbished and hopefully goes back into the UK.”
Rise of ‘refurb-as-a-service’
Where will refurbished devices see the most traction?
Saint flagged ‘refurb-as-a-service’ as a growth hotspot, particularly among NHS trusts “who are trying to do more for less, and make things last longer”.
“It’s actually refurbishing customers’ equipment to extend its life, and that’s normally part of a joiners, movers, leavers process,” he said.
Refurbished machines also have a role to play in persona-driven sourcing, Saint indicated.
“A lot of organisations don’t have the budget to buy those new AI PCs, so our message to our salesforce is very much, ‘okay, if you’re going push AI PCs, make sure we put some refurbished equipment in there, because not only will it balance the books, it’s also good from a sustainability point of view’,” he said.
“So we’ll have 20% AI, 60% normal and 20% refurb.”
‘There are quite a lot of smells”
SCC has “an eye” on selling HP-certified refurbished products via distribution next year, Saint said, emphasising that there is no mention of ‘SCC’ on any of the boxing.
“We certainly have Chinese walls between Recyclea and the main SCC business. I dare to dream that one day there’s pallets of HP- and Dell-certified refurbished equipment in distribution that we’ve made,” he said.
SCC shows two-to-three NHS trusts and local authorities around its Recyclea facility each month, Saint said.
The size of its refurb team situated in the facility – which is two miles down the road from SCC’s James House HQ – is “doubling every two months”, he claimed.
“It’s set up a bit like a theatre,” Saint said.
“It’s a performance. A lot of things in sales are quite conceptual – it’s a slide deck, it’s an outcome – no one gets to really see anything.
“Whereas here, there’s the sights, the sounds and the smells – there are quite a lot of smells when you’re grinding and compressing things.
“People come round and really enjoy seeing from the door of goods-in all the way through the facility to the output of an HP-certified or Dell-certified product at the end.”
Doug Woodburn is editor of IT Channel Oxygen
