For technology, the logic seems obvious.
Keep devices longer.
Buy refurbished instead of new.
Reduce e-waste.
So why aren't more large businesses doing exactly that?
For many large organisations, refurbished technology simply doesn't fit easily into the way enterprise IT works. And if we want to make technology more circular, that's a problem worth understanding.
01 — Enterprise scale
Buying 5,000 laptops isn’t like buying five
There are some great refurbished devices on the market. For individuals and many smaller organisations, they can make enormous sense.
But enterprise procurement operates at a different scale.
A large organisation may need hundreds or thousands of identical devices, with consistent specifications, security capabilities, operating systems, warranties and support.
Finding one excellent refurbished laptop is relatively easy. Finding 2,000 of the same model, with the same configuration, condition and remaining lifecycle, available at the same time, is considerably harder.
Corporate IT teams also need confidence around device provenance, security, compatibility with their managed environment, manufacturer support and how long the fleet can remain operational.
For many organisations, those aren’t preferences. They’re part of managing technology risk.
02 — The second life
Then there’s the technology they already own
The same challenge appears at the other end of the lifecycle.
A business may retire a laptop after three or four years because its warranty has expired, its standard operating environment has changed or a fleet-wide refresh is required.
That doesn’t necessarily mean the laptop has reached the end of its useful life.
It has reached the end of its corporate useful life.
That distinction matters.
Because we can end up with an unusual circularity problem: some of the organisations buying the largest volumes of new technology are also generating significant volumes of used technology that still has value, while being poorly positioned to consume that same type of used technology themselves.
03 — Reframing circularity
So, are we asking the wrong question?
Perhaps circular technology shouldn't depend on every organisation buying refurbished equipment.
Maybe the better question is:
How do we keep technology and its value circulating between the organisations that need new technology and the people and organisations that can use what comes next?
That creates a much more practical view of circularity.
Large businesses can buy the new, standardised and supported technology their environments require.
But the technology leaving those environments can be securely sanitised, assessed and directed towards its best next outcome. Some devices can have another life. Others can generate value through responsible material recovery.
What matters is that end-of-use for one organisation doesn't automatically become end-of-life for the technology.
04 — Practical pathways
Making the whole lifecycle work harder
There's another part of this equation that's easy to overlook. Every business already makes choices at both ends of the technology lifecycle.
It chooses who it buys from. And it chooses what happens to technology when it's finished with it.
Those choices can create value beyond the technology itself.
At TechForGood, this thinking sits behind Switch | Recycle | Impact
Not because we think every corporate should suddenly replace its fleet with refurbished devices.
Quite the opposite.
It’s about recognising the realities of enterprise technology and finding practical ways to create better outcomes around them.
That can mean switching ICT suppliers so existing technology spend contributes to social procurement outcomes, with greater ESG and governance consideration embedded through our Connected Procurement Framework.
It can mean using Recover-E to securely manage retired technology and find its best next outcome.
And it can mean turning the value generated through that process into broader impact. 100% of Recover-E profits fund Catalysing Connections, helping provide phones and connectivity to people and communities experiencing digital exclusion.
05 — A real-world model
Circularity has to work in the real world
None of this means businesses should abandon refurbished technology.
Where it meets the organisation’s technical, security and operational requirements, it deserves serious consideration. Nor should businesses replace technology unnecessarily. Extending device life remains an important part of reducing technology’s environmental footprint.
But a circular economy can’t rely on an assumption that every buyer can consume every type of second-life product. It needs pathways between different users, different needs and different stages of a product’s life.
For corporate technology, perhaps that’s where the biggest opportunity lies.
Not simply asking:
“Why aren’t you buying refurbished?”
But asking:
“How do we make sure the technology you buy, use and eventually retire creates as much value as possible, for as long as possible?”
That’s a version of circular technology that has a much better chance of working at scale.
