Trisk Research Team at University of Limerick Collaborates with Green IT in Transformative Government Contract for Sustainable Procurement.
The Irish government has demonstrated its commitment to sustainability and the circular economy by ensuring that government departments have the option to purchase remanufactured computers. Until now, this was not an option with approximately €300 million allocated for new ICT equipment. Green IT, an Irish company in collaboration with UK based Circular Computing have been selected as the official procurement partners in a transformative €30 million deal. This initiative represents a significant advancement in the government's circular computing agenda, contributing robustly to the Irish State's goal of ensuring that 80% of public sector IT equipment is remanufactured or meets the highest environmental standards by 2025. The first of its kind, this strategic partnership puts Ireland at the forefront of ecofriendly technology adoption in Europe, and will lead sustainable procurement policies across the European Union.
While public procurement traditionally sought best value and reliability, Green Public Procurement (GPP) addresses the environmental aspects of unsustainable consumption of IT assets. Remanufacturing is a key component of Ireland’s Circular Economy strategy, and there will be even more options available to government ensuring that key components of ICT may get a third, fourth or even a fifth life by working with key circular economy actors. This collaboration between Green IT, Circular Computing and the Irish Government is the focus of a demonstration project on Mainstreaming Circularity, funded by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and undertaken by an interdisciplinary research team at the University of Limerick (Trisk.ie). The team are developing circular business models and investigating the actual environmental impact of circularity in ICT.
According to Prof Colin Fitzpatrick of the University of Limerick, “The overall expectation from a user of a remanufactured product should be equivalent to new in terms of experience, cosmetic condition and warranty. During remanufacturing, products are completely disassembled, remanufactured and tested extensively. Whilst some new parts may be required for remanufacturing, it eliminates the need for many extremely intensive manufacturing processes, particularly for components with high environmental impacts such as processors, motherboards, memory and storage, leading to a significant reduction in environmental impact. Quantifying this environmental saving at scale based on real world data has never before been studied for ICT products and the University of Limerick, with the support of EPA Research, is delighted to be able to pioneer in this area”.
EPA Programme Manager Dr Tara Higgins said “Circular business models offer significant potential to reduce the environmental impact of consumer products by reusing and recycling materials already in use. By measuring and quantifying the environmental benefits of circularity in the electronics and ICT sector in an Irish context, this pioneering EPA-funded research will help support and promote the growth of the circular economy in Ireland”.
This strategic initiative offers purchasers high quality equipment that positively impacts the environment and at a very competitive price. As the Green IT tagline states “Technology that doesn’t cost the earth”.
About Trisk and MainCirc:
Trisk is an interdisciplinary research group at the University of Limerick that is committed to advancing research on sustainability and circularity in Ireland. The team brings together expertise in electronics, sustainability, environmental impact, marketing and business model development and has completed numerous EPA funded research projects. The current project Mainstreaming Circular Economies Through Collaboration & Co-Creation supports the mainstreaming of circular business models in Ireland. Collaborating with Green IT, this multi-disciplinary research will explore circular business models (CBMs) within the ICT sector. The project will quantify impacts and deliver policy and transferrable knowledge in order to accelerate circularity in Ireland. For further information see Trisk.ie.
About Green IT:
Green IT is a leading provider of innovative IT solutions, specializing in procurement, deployment, and support services for businesses and organizations of all sizes. With a focus on sustainability and customer satisfaction, Green IT delivers cutting-edge technology solutions tailored to meet the unique needs of each client. For more information, please visit Green IT. Green IT partner with the Trisk Research Group at University of Limerick in an EPA funded project on Mainstreaming Circularity in Ireland.
About EPA Research:
This research is being funded by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under the EPA Research Programme 2021−2030. The EPA Research Programme is a Government of Ireland initiative funded by the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications. More information about the EPA Research Programme can be found by visiting the EPA website.