ESG Reports: CO₂ Avoided, Materials Recovered, Devices Reused
How the platform tracks per-device environmental impact, where the assumptions come from, and how the report rolls up for stakeholder communication.
ESG reporting in ITAD is the answer to "how much carbon did we avoid by reusing instead of recycling, and recycling instead of dumping?" The numbers are calculations, not measurements, but the calculations have to be defensible — meaning the assumptions need to be documented and consistent.
Per-device impact
Each device category has a baseline impact factor: kilograms of CO₂-equivalent that would be emitted if the device were manufactured new. A laptop is around 300kg. A monitor is 200kg. A server is 1,500kg. When the platform extends the device’s life by reuse, the avoided emissions are the baseline minus the disposal-or-replacement emissions. When the device is recycled, the recovered material credit is calculated from the device’s mass and the recovery rate per material.
The factors live in the platform’s reference data, sourced from the ITAD industry’s commonly-cited LCA studies (PE International, Fraunhofer, manufacturer LCAs). They’re version-stamped: a report run today uses today’s factors, but a report rerun for a past period uses the factors active at that time. The methodology note in the report cites the source.
Three primary metrics
CO₂ avoided: total kgCO₂e prevented by reuse and material recovery in the period. Materials recovered: tonnage by material type (steel, aluminium, copper, plastics, rare earths). Devices given a second life: count, by category. These three numbers form the headline; the supporting tables show the calculations per device category.
Period picker
/core/reports/esg shares the period-picker with mass-balance, so the two reports cover the same period for cross-checking. The order-shipped fallback applies here too (because shipped-but-not-settled outflows still represent real environmental impact).
Stakeholder narrative
The PDF export ends with a one-page narrative summary: total impact, period-over-period trend, comparison to a "had we not done this" counterfactual. Used for client-facing reports (the bank wants to know what their decommission saved) and for internal stakeholder communication (the CFO wants to know the ESG numbers for the annual report).