How everyday technology choices drive true workplace sustainability

In today's business landscape, sustainability is a critical focus for executives, alongside technology and artificial intelligence, according to Deloitte research. Technology is seen as a key tool for achieving organizational objectives, with 96 percent of US tech leaders surveyed by Barco ClickShare stating that their sustainability efforts make a significant global contribution to their strategy.

Furthermore, 98 percent of these leaders believe their departments should be at the forefront of such activities, with more than 80 percent willing to reject job offers from organizations lacking a strong sustainability track record.

Yannic Laleeuwe, Marketing Director at Barco ClickShare, explains that IT functions play a central role in tackling sustainability issues due to their day-to-day technology choices directly impacting an organization's environmental footprint. Sustainability involves practical decisions like purchasing reliable technology, extending product life, reducing complexity, and ensuring proper management, repair, and recycling of devices.

However, IT leaders cannot address sustainability challenges alone, as technology decisions are rarely made by them alone. Collaboration with other stakeholders, including sustainability and environmental affairs teams, procurement, finance, facilities management, operations, and executive leaders, is crucial. By working together, it becomes easier to balance security, usability, cost, lifecycle impact, energy efficiency, repairability, and end-of-life recovery before making a purchase.

Sustainable procurement considerations are essential, with key questions for prospective buyers including the methodologies behind products and their certifications. Valid certifications include TCO Certified's global sustainability for IT products mark and the US government's Energy Star symbol for energy efficiency. Sustainability certifications ranked second only to cost as the most important factor in hardware purchases, according to Barco ClickShare's survey.

When selecting conferencing and communication platforms, energy consumption during usage is vital, along with whether vendors offer take-back programs or responsible disposal routes for products at end-of-life. Unfortunately, repairability and recycling are often overlooked, with only 42 percent of IT leaders selecting equipment that can be repaired by the manufacturer and 11 percent prioritizing recycling.

This lack of focus on repairability and recycling results in equipment ending up in landfills instead of being properly maintained and recycled.