The Co-operative Group has begun a recycling programme for decommissioned equipment following a refresh prompted by the merger with United Co-operatives in the summer of 2007.

Co-op's food retail information services department will work with specialist refurbishing company UK IT Recycling on the recovery of around 1,000 items of equipment, which will be donated to schools, clubs and charities.

"We needed to dispose of the computers which we could no longer use in our food stores but we also wanted to ensure we followed our co-operative principles," said Gary Wardley, food retail IS hardware team manager at The Co-operative Group.

"If we can extend the life of equipment and prevent it from being thrown away then we have a responsibility to try."

The news follow Co-op's announcement last month of a £1m investment in the overhaul of its data warehousing platform, intended to increase storage capacity and information processing power for the merged business.

Earlier this year, Co-op also made an investment of over £8m in an electronic point-of-sale system, and introduced a night-time energy saving programme for its tills which is expected to save 722 tonnes of CO2 and generate yearly savings of £120,000.

While the integration with United Co-operatives appears to be progressing smoothly, there will be challenges linked to the prospective merger of Co-op's retail businesses with supermarket chain Somerfield, which received a £1.57bn takeover bid last summer.

The proposed acquisition will have to address complexities linked to outsourcing deals, and address cultural differences between the two businesses.

Widespread industry opinion is that, since private equity-owned Somerfield may have been focused on short-term strategies up to now, it may take some readjusting by the acquired group to fit into Co-op's long-term IT strategy.