Client Sustainability

SLS – Enabler of the Circular Economy

SLS engages collaboratively with global clients to re-examine business models and to plan for continual evolution towards a circular economy model. Clients leverage our knowledge about disposition of retired electronic assets, managing their movement through reverse supply chains, and quantifying the carbon impact of these assets.

Reuse

SLS works with clients to identify opportunities to reuse and redeploy equipment. This extends the useful life of IT equipment. Reuse avoids the emissions associated with manufacturing new products, reduces reliance on raw materials, avoids landfill and can contribute to localizing supply chains. It makes sense for your bottom line and your sustainability goals.

Recycling

Recycling obsolete electronics diverts material from landfill or incineration. SLS invests in innovative technology to produce clean recyclables that can be used as a feedstock to replace virgin raw materials in making new products. Extracting more value from materials, through reuse and recycling, is a good economic decision and plays an important role in the circular economy.

New Sustainability Calculator for IT and Data Center Assets

Recognizing you manage what you measure, we have developed a sustainability calculator for measuring carbon emissions avoided by choosing to reuse and recycle electronics.

SLS’ Sustainability Calculator provides our clients with industry-leading environmental reporting when reusing, redeploying and recycling all types of IT equipment.

The calculator is powered by manufacturers’ data on the 14 most commonly used IT equipment in the data center and workplace. Clients are able to calculate carbon emissions avoided from their IT asset disposition program, which enables:

• Aligning their IT asset disposition program closer to their corporate sustainability goals
• Making smarter and more sustainable decisions about managing IT assets
• Quantifying Scope 3 emissions associated with disposition of used IT assets
• Improving value recovery
• Measuring and improving environmental outcomes

What is Reported?

Carbon emissions avoided when reusing whole units and components, and recycling of IT equipment is reported from the calculator. In addition to tonnes of carbon emissions avoided, we also provide carbon equivalency metrics, which provide a user-friendly way to visualize the results.

The SLS Sustainability Calculator provides clients with transparent sustainability reporting suitable to contribute to corporate carbon accounting. Our robust and up-to-date data sets and transparent calculations provide proof points to withstand internal and external audits.

How It Was Built

The engine behind the calculator is independently sourced and verified and is regularly updated. It includes more product categories than others on the market, including a wide range of cloud materials. Energy consumption data is sourced by country. We use our own proprietary production information, including the green energy utilized in our Circular Centers. This data yields more accurate calculated results.

Benefits of Working with SLS

We provide periodic reports to our clients, detailing carbon avoided by their current ITAD program. Because IT equipment continues to evolve, we recognize the importance of updating our calculator to stay in sync with the marketplace. We ensure that the information is current and relevant through regular maintenance and updates, including new product categories and the most current assay findings.

Reusing Assets Yields Significant Sustainability Gains

The new SLS Sustainability Calculator empowers our clients to quantify carbon emissions avoided, not only from recycling, but also from the reuse of IT assets. Most calculators only provide results for recycled assets, giving an incomplete view of a program’s total carbon footprint. Incorporating reuse data provides a more complete overview, providing clients with the opportunity to make more sustainable-focused decisions on asset processing.