Read part one of this report: How to curb IT’s hunger for power

From a financial perspective there is a case for firms to dispose of old, unwanted kit by dumping it in the cheapest way possible. This has led to regulations such as the new Restrictions on Hazardous Substances (RoHS) and Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) directives. However, some experts believe that rather than simply being an onerous cost, compliance with best practices for the safe disposal of assets can also deliver business benefits for firms.

Commentators agree any environmentally-friendly IT asset disposal programme should begin at the point of purchase. Contracts should include specifications governing the ease of product disassembly. This can make kit easier to recycle and can reduce disposal costs. And if the initial contract states how the supplier will take back products at the end of their useful life it can avoid confusion when it is time to upgrade.

Firms should then sign up with an approved recycling and disposal scheme run by their supplier, a specialist waste management firm or a charitable organisation that refurbishes corporate PCs for reuse.

Organisations are increasingly willing to take such measures, as they realise they can get value from their old IT equipment, according to Kirsty McIntyre, WEEE programme manager for HP in the UK and Ireland. “[Firms] are realising there is a value in resale of whole machines or components, and in the improved asset management that goes with properly managed disposal,” she adds. Firms signing up with charitable organisations can also bolster their corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives while disposing of their IT equipment.

However, firms should ensure that any recycling services they use certify that data will be wiped from old machines. Otherwise, they may face security problems, as demonstrated last month by investigators for the BBC’s Real Story programme, who found unwiped hard drives from the UK for sale in Nigeria.

The show also revealed the environmental damage that can result if kit is sent for disposal to developing economies, where toxic components may pollute groundwater and cause health problems for workers disassembling the machines.

Regardless of which partners they use to dispose of their kit, firms should audit the schemes to ensure they follow best practices for both data wiping and disposal, according to McIntyre. “You should be asking your recycling partner, be it a vendor or a broker, where the waste ends up, how it is handled and whether they have relevant certificates.”

Lena Pripp-Kovac, corporate responsibility and sustainability manager for Dell, agrees firms should audit their recycling partners. “We have all seen photos of sites in China and other developing countries where IT kit has been dumped illegally – that waste must come from somewhere,” she says. “Dell uses a third-party auditor [to check its recycling programmes] and requires partners to give full information on material flows and data destruction. It is both an environmental problem and a data security risk, so firms need to know their hardware is being handled correctly.”

While better purchasing specifications and improved IT asset disposal practices can reduce the environmental footprint of the IT department itself, IT directors also have a major role to play in business-wide initiatives to limit environmental damage and again reduce costs. This is most apparent in the move towards home working that is allowing growing numbers of staff to forgo environmentally damaging commutes to work.