Over 500 InfoSec and Risk Management professions from across Europe came together for Whitehall Media’s “Enterprise Security and Risk Management” (ESRM) and “Cloud Computing and DevOps” (ECCD) in September. Held in Amsterdam, these conferences explored a series of complex and timely issues on the IT asset disposition landscape.
Speaker sessions and exhibitors at ESRM discussed the complex maze of cyber threats, security metrics and emerging security challenges that impact an organisation’s ability to cultivate a culture of information security best practice. Speakers offered innovative, practical solutions to organisations on managing the multitude of risks that can disrupt business.
Gerard Norbruis, sales and finance manager with Sims Recycling Solutions (SRS) B.V, took this conversation a step further by explaining how digital data security and sustainability are not mutually exclusive in, “Don’t Forget the Afterlife: Data Security in the Circular Economy”. Exploring the Internet of Things (IoT) and other new technologies, he examined the benefits and flexibility of a partner-focused approach to risk management with Circular Economy principles at its core. He said, “Many organizations recycle equipment by default to ensure data protection but they are missing opportunities to recover value and minimise their organisation’s environmental impact. A trusted IT Asset Disposition (ITAD) partner can help create a more sustainable solution that ‘closes the loop’. Devices can be made completely data safe and then be reused or resold”.
At ECCD, Andrew Brown, SRS’ UK Head of Business Development (ITAD), also explored sustainability and the Circular Economy, but this time through the lens of cloud computing. By 2018, more than 60 percent of organisations will have at least half of their applications and infrastructure on cloud-based platforms, so IT professionals need to fully understand the challenges – and opportunities –they provide. In “Moving Cloud Computing Towards the Circular Economy: A Sustainability Primer”, Brown noted that with the rapid worldwide proliferation of cloud computing, it is imperative that data centre facility hardware is incorporated into the Circular Economy. Otherwise the already challenging e-waste situation will become truly staggering and unmanageable. He offered a solution to this challenge by examining a successful and sustainable European data centre decommissioning project undertaken by SRS. In speaking of the project benefits he said, “We recovered value from retired assets to offset decommissioning and data destruction costs, helped to make the data centres carbon neutral and reduced landfill waste, and created jobs in supply chain- all while contributing to the Circular Economy.”
The conference also provided SRS staff from the Netherlands and UK with an opportunity to meet with clients and colleagues and to develop a more nuanced understanding of European and global considerations that will impact the ITAD world in the near future.
To learn more about ITAD data security, click here.