The WeCycle Project – Carbon Calculator development for IT equipment

Abstract: With global emissions of human activities that drive climate change on the rise, global institutions and authorities are trying to introduce new regulations in the industry, in order to accomplish a significant reduction of carbon emissions. In order for companies to be more effective in reducing carbon emissions, not only from their products but also along their value chains and product portfolios, it is of vital importance to understand and quantify them. Following that need, tools that can measure the carbon footprint of various corporate operations (carbon calculators) have risen in popularity in the latest years. A sector in which companies can significantly improve their environmental impact is their IT equipment portfolio. WeCycle, as developed by Greener Scandinavia AB (partner of this project), is a platform that facilitates reselling of old IT equipment, while aiming to reduce its environmental impacts. This project then, in cooperation with WeCycle, aims to develop a software tool that calculates the environmental benefits (kg of CO2 eq. avoided) when reusing old IT equipment. This can help clients estimate this benefit, while also providing a CSR incentive. The specific methodological steps needed in order to complete the project included literature review concerning the state of e-waste and initiatives to minimize its environmental impacts, guidelines, and procedures related to LCA of IT equipment and various other carbon calculators, developing calculation model and assumptions in order to compile the database, interface design, and finally using and testing the software tool against a real case scenario - case study provided by WeCycle. The results, and design process of the project, were enlightening in the matter of understanding potential benefits of reusing IT equipment, but also in identifying the “hotspot” stages of an electronic device’s lifecycle. Even though variations were noticed depending on the type of the device (e.g. smartphones vs desktop computers), it is evident that the emissions that occur during the production phase are considered of major importance (ranked either 1st or 2nd most important/emission heavy stage), and therefore the benefits of reusing are of a high relative magnitude. All in all, this project resulted in a useful tool for WeCycle to measure the benefits of their practices, as well as for any user or company that would like to measure the carbon emissions that can be avoided when they give their old IT equipment up for resell. Hopefully, by easily quantifying these benefits, this tool can motivate both a behavioral change in the industry, as well as researchers to expand it in order to cover all sectors of the industry and everyday life.