Tech

Lifetime extension of PCs and monitors

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Objectives

• Prolong the lifetime of a product and reduce your environmental footprint

Green Value indicator

• CO2 reduction
• reduction of environmental
footprint

Explanation

General perspective:
The production of digital devices such as laptops, PCs or monitors requires energy and mineral resources and causes CO2 emissions, environmental destruction and waste production. According to Jens Gröger, for the production of one laptop around 250kg of CO2 are emitted. Let’s say, you use this laptop for two years and throw it away afterwards, then the CO2 emission that is caused only for creating this laptop is 125kg/year. By extending the lifetime to four years, you reduce the CO2 emissions by half to 62,5 kg of CO2/year and if you use the laptop for 8 years, CO2 emissions are at 31,25 kg of CO2/year. In a nutshell: by prolonging the lifetime of a device you save CO2 emissions and minimise your ecological footprint.

An example of good practice is the University of Edinburgh. In 2016, the Department for Social Responsibility and Sustainability was running a pilot project reusing 174 workstations (= computer + monitor) that would have otherwise been reused or recycled outside the university. By prolonging the lifetime of computers and monitors from four to six years, thus avoiding buying new devices, the department is estimated to have saved 190 kg of CO2 emission per workstation. This added up to CO2 savings of 33,000 kg.

What about energy efficiency improvements? Indeed, energy efficiency is improved with the development of new products. Yet, the environmental impacts and CO2 emissions generated during production are so high that energy efficiency gains cannot outgrow the savings made by lifetime extensions. In fact, it is estimated that in case of a 10% increase in energy efficiency of new computers relatively to older ones “can only be justified after 33 to 89 years”. In the unlikely scenario of a 50% increase of energy efficiency, from an environmental standpoint a replacement would make sense after 7 to 16 years. Such a 50% increase in energy efficiency is however very unlikely as improvements in energy efficiency have slowed down.

PROS/CONS of the action

Pros:

• saves CO2 without an additional effort
• reduces organisation’s budget spending on hardware

Cons:

• counteracts the societal trends to always have the newest devices available; some employees might find it unattractive to work with “old” devices as new technological devices convey social status
• frustration from working with old and sometimes slow devices: computing and processing capacities double up every ~1.5 years. Newer software might eventually require new hardware

Certified

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Link to useful sources

Carbon Emission Implications of ICT Re-use at the University of Edinburgh