With the climate crisis at our door, corporate social responsibility is more important than ever.
Businesses are under growing pressure to not only display good eco-ethics, but embrace sustainable practices at all levels.
Consumers want to know that you’re playing a part in securing a green future.
Environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues have become a greater priority for investors and shareholders.
Potential employees also increasingly want to work for greener firms. Three-quarters of small to medium enterprises (SMEs) workers said sustainability is important to them, according to Brother.
Meanwhile, those seeking public sector contracts are now required to prove how they are delivering on social and environmental well-being.
Yet, every year, millions of tons of damaged, obsolete or unwanted electronic devices are discarded as waste.
Old IT equipment often ends up on mountains of waste in foreign countries, causing damage to our precious planet.
At the same time, here in the UK there are hundreds of thousands of children who don’t have a device to access the internet.
Born Good has the solution to dual problems of digital poverty and digital pollution, working with others to breathe life into old hardware.
Why it’s important to reduce environmental impact
Nearly 100% of electronic waste is recyclable but the world’s growing mountain of discarded goods weighed in at an estimated 57 million tonnes last year. That’s heavier than the Great Wall of China.
Sadly, it’s predicted this will only get worse due to the pandemic surge in homeworking and purchase of extra IT equipment.
Less than 20% of e-waste globally is recycled and the UK is in the top 10 of waste producers per capita.
When incorrectly disposed of, not only can harmful toxins leak into the earth but precious metals such as gold and silver used in their production are lost for ever.
The value of these has a key role to play in the UK’s progress towards establishing a circular economy and Net Zero.
The Royal Society of Chemistry recently warned some of these precious metals are expected to run out in the next 100 years if recycling is not ramped-up.
An easy way to reduce your carbon footprint
Instead of simply giving your hardware to a vendor to dispose of even pay for disposal, Born Good makes it work for you.
We accept a wide range of equipment, including desktops, laptops, servers, tablets and mobile phones.
We then wipe the devices to the highest government standards and ensure no data is retrievable, before fully refurbishing them – letting companies decide how they should be reused.
At the same time, the equipment can be used to fund a carbon offset programme through our environmental partners, and we have a 0% to landfill pledge for any items we can’t repurpose.
Buy better, waste less
With ethical equipment purchasing, we provide refurbished devices which can save companies can tens of thousands of pounds.
Refurbished tech often boasts better specs and more up to date features in comparison to similarly price ranged equipment.
You can relax in the knowledge devices have been tested to function correctly and if any faults existed, these will have been repaired.
Not only does this help reduce e-waste, savings can be invested in other areas of the business.
Donate your old laptops and computers
We’ve worked with dozens of companies from Northumbrian Water to Greggs to Huawei, to breathe new life into redundant equipment.
In conjunction with the Laptops for Kids campaign and Northern Powerhouse Partnership, last year we launched the Donate Digital initiative, which encouraged individuals and businesses to donate their unwanted devices.
The resulted in nearly 3,500 pieces of equipment being donated to us, most of were repurposed for use by children who weren’t fortunate enough to have access to the internet.
By avoiding the purchase of new IT equipment and the CO2 impact of manufacturing a device, last year we have saved around 400 tonnes of CO2 equivalent.
That is the same as nearly 1million miles driven by an average car, or a day’s travel by 49,000 cars, or the annual energy use of 45 homes.
Lockdown may be over, but digital poverty remains, so we remain committed to helping those without access to the internet.
A simple step to a sustainable world
Born Good has been at the forefront of safe and sustainable solutions to e-waste since 2016. Every business can play a part in facing the challenges of the climate emergency – and we can do it together.