(re) blog: dialogue with Redemtech

60 Minutes Hits the Toxic Jackpot

The CBS News program 60 Minutes just ran a hard-hitting segment titled The Electronic Wasteland on the toxic e-waste trade between the United States and China. It was classic 60 Minutes, featuring human suffering, an apparently unscrupulous businessman, the Chinese underworld, and an intrepid reporter—Scott Pelley—exposing it all. For insiders in the electronics recycling industry, this is an old story. A majority of recyclers increase their profits by shipping hard-to-recycle commodities to buyers in developing countries where the lack of worker safety and environmental regulations have created an e-waste gold rush. Tonight, CBS News became the latest company to profit from this toxic trade.

Beyond Green: Roadmap to Sustainable Computing

Thanks to everyone who attended our presentation at the recent Gartner IT Financial, Procurement & Asset Management Summit in San Diego. Our material was based on a new IDC whitepaper by David Daoud, Beyond Power: IT's Roadmap to Sustainable Computing. We ran a little long, as always happens when people with passion for a topic are given a podium, so I promised to do our Q&A online.

BusinessWeek Exposes the e-Cycling Integrity Gap

I am happy to report that times have changed. When we started Redemtech 10 years ago, many corporate clients questioned the need for responsible electronics recycling. It was common practice in 1998 to use the dumpster for asset disposition, and exporting ewaste to developing countries was perfectly acceptable: not anymore. Most companies now demand responsible management of their surplus electronics, and a few service providers like Redemtech have invested tens of millions to deliver truly accountable results. As BusinessWeek discovered, we are the exception.

Dreamers, But Not the Only Ones

Blame Redemtech's 10-year anniversary (July 2008) for putting us in a reflective mood. The industry has developed much along the lines envisioned by our 1998 business plan; IT Asset Disposition is today viewed as a critical service which is held accountable for privacy and environmental compliance. Residual value recovery, though still important, is only one component of a value spectrum which also must deliver results for Asset Management, Community Affairs and IT Operations. And we are still dreamers - still imagining, and planning for, what comes next for IT.

Making the G.R.A.D.E.

The IT asset disposition business today is highly fragmented and immature, with no generally accepted standards and few barriers to entry. And because the service smacks of being "green," the industry is awash in an entrepreneurial froth, leaving small electronics recyclers in almost every town of any size.

A Low Bar Is Worse than No Bar

Earlier this year, I found myself in a hotel bar debating the EPA's prospective certification for electronics recyclers with a respected colleague. He has been personally involved with development of the "Responsible Recycling, or "R2" standard, and was proud of his participation in the grand coalition of manufacturers, industry interest groups, and non-profits. There were many times, he said, when it appeared that diverging stakeholder interests would derail the whole idea of a national standard for e-waste recycling. "In the end, we compromised our principles, but after all," he rationalized, "Minimal standards are better than no standards at all." In the best tradition of large bureacracies, the EPA now appears ready to create a certification which will simultaneously fail in its worthy environmental and social objectives, while delighting those industry interests devoted to keeping e-waste recycling as profitable as possible.

Caring Means Governance

Hypothetically, let's say a financial services company suspects it has lost a couple of unencrypted computers, or more specifically, its auditors think they have. Under the law, they have an obligation to report such a loss.  When they check with their IT asset disposition vendor, none are missing, but two serial numbers don't match. Is it a privacy breach or just bad accounting?

Winning the Earth Day Shell Game

Earth Day has always been a holiday like New Years for boomer environmentalists like me—a festive opportunity for resolutions to improve our lives. So we make an annual effort to recycle more and drive less, and maybe it helps a little. But recently the market has discovered that green sells, so Earth Day is suddenly big in a bad way. Thanks to the numerous electronics recycling events planned for this week, Earth Day may be the single most harmful day of the year for the environment and human health.

Reuse is the New Latest Thing

In a recent blog on ZDnet, Heather Clancy asks why more effort isn't going into refurbishing technology equipment.  I have a twofold answer: 1) equipment manufacturers continue to make every clever argument they can to entice us to buy new boxes--no surprise, and 2) lots of IT people don't trust the cold hard numbers that quantify the financial benefits of a longer lifecycle.

OEMs Are the Greenest!

Let's pretend that we are all big PC manufacturers, and that we want to sell more boxes. Since everybody's talking about being more "green," maybe we could say that it's more environmentally friendly to trade in that old PC on a new one! Yeah, that's it—older PCs aren't worth as much, so companies might have to pay to recycle them. That makes buying new systems cheaper in the long run than keeping the old ones, right? 

Bob's 2008 Predictions

As the turning of a new year takes me further into middle age (if this is my halfway point, I will live to 106), I feel that I have accumulated enough IT related wisdom to comfortably afford parting with some of it.  The following does not necessarily represent the opinions of the staff or management of Redemtech:

Off-Network Security Risk No Longer Off the Radar

Last summer, Redemtech commissioned a study with the Ponemon Institute to explore the root causes behind data breaches that are providing so many companies with so much bad press. We initially suspected that the trouble begins when assets are disconnected from the network to move or retire equipment. The study was conducted with 735 security professionals from mid-size to large organizations, in both government and the private sector.

E-Wasted, But Planning for a Better Day

I attended the E-Scrap conference in Atlanta last week, where 900 of my colleagues and I spent two days debating the state of electronics recycling. Redemtech is not itself a recycler, but uses partners to process many millions of pounds of electronics each year. So we are part of the industry by association, and we stay in close touch to ensure our downstream vendors are compliant with industry best practices. The various sessions completely ignored a glaring deficiency in the trade: the majority of electronics owners choose NOT to recycle their old computers and other e-junk when they are done with it. Stated more bluntly, the customer doesn't like, or think they need, what we are selling.

Doors Locked, Windows Wide Open

It’s easy to steal data—just walk away with it. Despite billions spent on IT security, the Ponemon Institute’s National Survey on the Insecurity of Off-Network Security has found that many corporations are failing to address the root cause of more than half of all data breaches: the loss or theft of data-bearing assets. The good news is that remediation of off-network security gaps, though not easy, can be straightforward.

The Healthy Benefits of Organic Growth

Nothing makes industry analysts and media wonks happier than when an emerging market begins to consolidate. Companies are bought and sold. The big get bigger, the small guys fail; fortunes are made and jobs are lost. It all makes for some very melodramatic story telling that often overlooks a very fundamental question: is it good for customers?

WEEE: Ready or Not

The European Union's WEEE Directive has been touted as a model for electronics producer responsibility, but many do not realize that years after its passage, the law is only now taking effect—country by country (for example, the Directive went into effect in the U.K. on July 1). From a recycling infrastructure and capacity perspective, the unfortunate truth for WEEE is that Europe is unprepared to accept the tsunami of e-waste that the law will generate, and its implementors' near-term efforts will favor expediency over environmental stewardship.

Honky-Tonk ITAM

Redemtech has been a leading sponsor of the Gartner IT and Software Asset Management Summit for years. The conference was always busy, but our most meaningful customer contact has often occurred at relaxed moments, i.e. parties—adult beverage in hand—when conversation could easily turn to the important stuff like kids, vacations, and critical business issues. This year we decided to forego paid participation at the ITAM conference, and invite a few customers to a genuine Nashville honky-tonk to share some quality time.

Innovation Needs Six Sigma...Eventually

Business Week's cover story last week was about how Six Sigma nearly killed innovation at 3M. The implication is that innovation is somehow compromised by rigorous, data-driven management, which I think is a false choice.

Relax...We Have a Policy for That

It’s good news that concern for data privacy has become a public priority for so many companies. Trouble is, if policy is crafted at the executive level and passed down to management for execution without a mandate for inspection and measurement of outcomes, a charade often results.