Technology leaders examine IT's environmental impact

Nexthink has released its Quantifying e-Waste in Corporate IT report, which proves cutting back on environmental waste and creating a more sustainable future can be achieved by eliminating common bad IT habits and better monitoring of device health.

Nexthink’s customers are at the forefront of creating a more sustainable future and adopting a digital sobriety mindset. Because of this, they welcomed the opportunity to reduce CO2 emissions and waste across their organization, which Nexthink identified during the first few weeks of the partnership. This report focused on that data collected during the first weeks of Nexthink implementation from 3.5 million anonymized devices to study how IT leaders everywhere can reduce their organization’s environmental footprint and costs while improving employee experience.

The pertinent learnings from the report include:

1: Don’t automatically refresh every device. Only replace and pay for what you need to.

The report calls attention to a common trend among enterprises of replacing hardware every few years, regardless of useability. Nexthink’s research found that 20% of devices were still performing and didn’t require replacement. And of the 80% that did have a low performance score, only 2% were unsalvageable while the remaining 98% were fixable with a simple RAM upgrade or by optimizing startup performance. Companies that are opting to focus on these small fixes are saving millions and helping to address the global e-waste problem.

2. Examine and improve computers’ start up time by checking the applications installed and upgrading old devices.

Shockingly, devices that take longer than five minutes to load, produce more than 450 tons of CO2 emissions per year—that’s the equivalent of 50,636 gallons of gasoline. This waste can be prevented with better visibility into the health of employee devices, a clear understanding of user habits and by taking a more proactive approach to common IT issues.

3. Educate employees on green computing habits and create two-way communication channels between the IT team and employees.

A lack of understanding of employee computing habits leads to a higher emissions output and slower computing speeds. The research exposed that collectively, gaming, personal communication and media streaming apps generate 33 tons of CO2 emissions per year. To put that in perspective, it would take 300 trees a full year to absorb those emissions, based on our sample. IT Leaders have the potential to help their organizations reduce a minimum of 695 Kgs of CO2 emissions per week simply by educating workers about smart computing habits and by eliminating applications that are heavy emitters.

“Creating a more sustainable work environment is a top priority for enterprises today,” said Yassine Zaied, Chief Strategy Officer at Nexthink. “But while many CSR initiatives focus on reducing single-use plastic and eliminating paper waste, they overlook the massive emissions output their IT hardware and digital activities are producing every day. IT leaders have a responsibility to better understand the impact employees’ digital footprint can have on the environment and be proactive in rectifying digital issues that are negatively contributing to their environmental impact. Simple acts such as ensuring software is kept up-to-date, turning off laptops when not in use and removing non-essential applications can go a long way in cutting back emissions and saving organizations money. And while most companies would like to make these changes, many struggle to do so efficiently without a targeted approach. Big CSR changes are possible when organizations have the ability to understand how employees work and the challenges they are facing, and are able to respond accordingly.”