Looking Back and Looking Forward

As we have closed out another successful year, we celebrate our 2023 achievements:

In 2023, SLS repurposed and redeployed 3.8 million cloud units, drawing nearer to our goal of repurposing or redeploying 8.5 million units by the end of FY25. These activities avoided 755,000 tons of CO2e compared with manufacturing those same units: 2023 Sustainability Report.

New Tools You Can Use

Expanded Services

  • We increased our fleet of on-site shred vehicles in Europe in response to our clients’ growing need for secure on-site data destruction.
  • Our continued partnership with the Open Compute Project (OCP) provides cost savings and sustainability to data centers through the refurbishment and redeployment of redundant equipment.

Sustainability Gains

  • Our parent company, Sims Limited  (ASX: SGM), was recently recognized as 2024’s most sustainable corporation on Corporate Knights’ Global 100 index. This is the company’s tenth and highest ranked inclusion on the list.
  • We have made substantial strides towards our goal to use 100% renewable electricity and announced in 2023 that 100% of our North American-operated businesses are using renewable electricity. Globally, more than 110 sites of our parent company, Sims Limited, now use renewable electricity: 2023 Sustainability Report.
  • Our circularity indicators project will measure the sustainability of our ITAD clients by measuring the circular design and the resourceful use of IT assets.

Looking ahead to 2024, we eagerly anticipate continued progress with ongoing initiatives and relationships:

Innovation

  • New technology in our Nashville Circular Center is being tested to automate repurposing used data center equipment as we focus on improving resource recovery and closing the loop on material flows.
  • SLS has automated independent mobile robots (IMRs) that move data center racks from one processing station to another without the assistance of staff. The robots maneuver between points at timed intervals to assist the production environment, enabling staff to focus on more complex elements of the process.
  • SLS is leveraging optical recognition scanning and machine learning to systematically confirm that all parts have been properly removed from a server. The system prevents the server from progressing in the process if it determines components have not been removed. In conjunction with the robotic disassembly, machine learning has resulted in a success rate of 99.6% with the expectation to improve to 100%. These innovations ensure compliance for successful redeployment, data security and protection of proprietary parts.

Compliance

  • The Sims Portal that manages asset reporting has been reimagined. Our new portal, Link, enables visualization of asset reporting data and improves the quality of business intelligence for our clients.
  • SLS is in the process of a SOC 1 Type 2 Certification specific to a Fortune 50 client, focusing on the effectiveness of the SLS control environment for the requested processes. We have taken this step to demonstrate the robustness of our control environment. This compliance signifies that SLS has a specific control framework regarding our clients’ financial statements.

Expanded and Improved Footprint

We have expanded our Circular Centers in both Singapore and the Netherlands and have increased our presence in Latin America in response to market demands.

These highlights emphasize the continuous improvement and ongoing client collaboration that makes SLS a leader in all aspects of our industry, while contributing to our company’s purpose “to create a world without waste to preserve our planet.” We look forward to more success in 2024!