Let's Get Serious About Sustainability

Business should have a conscience. In this world of banking collapses, expense scandals and general cut throat behaviour, it is easy to forget that businesses are made up of people too. There has to be a certain hard-nosed attitude to making a profit, but within the boundaries of commonsense we all need to remember who we are.

Profits pay wage increases and bonuses, and provide the investment we all need so that life goes on progressing. But we cannot afford any business to make profit at any cost. There has to be a balance between tough commercialism and doing the right thing. That was one lesson of the banking crisis I suppose.

There are simply issues beyond profit.

Sustainability is one of those issues for me. Deep down, when actually forced to really think hard about it, everyone has to recognise that we cannot go on using the planet’s resources. Sooner or later everything is going to run out and then where will we be? The cynical answer is in our boxes of course, but again sanity usually prevails. We are custodians of this planet, not owners.

Because the environment is ‘AN ISSUE’. It is not something one can avoid anymore. Getting it wrong gets you into all sorts of trouble. Good grief, I remember when poor old Tony Archer managed to contaminate the River Am in the Archers a while back...he was almost tarred and feathered! (Sorry I am addicted to The Archers on BBC Radio 4). Big business really has got that message. I met an Environmental Manager the other day. His brief is to keep his employer legal, whilst not costing them too much money, obviously. That such a position exists shows that ‘the issue’ is firmly on the agenda.

However, the IT industry, and broadly the electronics industry, does seem to have got its act together on sustainability. Just about everything can be reused or recycled these days. 0% landfill is not an aspiration, it is a reality. But just as I have accused companies of paying lip service to data security issues, I am afraid the same is true of our attitude to recycling...at least at work.

At home, we are used to sorting our rubbish and we all know why. Not doing so is not an option unless you want to upset the bin men, and no one wants to upset the bin men. It is unthinkable. But businesses large and small are a lot more careless.

On one level it is apathy. Our toner collection service is pretty simple, and a good example of what I am talking about. We send you a box, you put the toner things in there. When full, you call us and we collect it. On the side of the box it tells you exactly what should go in there. So what do you think happens?

Yep. Just about everything gets tossed in there. Not only other cartridges and packaging but banana skins, coffee cups and all the other paraphernalia of office life. We have to give every box a good sort and that costs everyone extra money.

And money is the root of all evil of course. No business wants extra costs. That is why that Environmental Manager was struggling to find a meeting room and did not have as much influence within the business that he would have liked. I am not saying there were barriers in his path but he was not at the top table, where the crucial, big decisions are taken. He was not even on the right floor!

Board and ownership level responsibility is essential if we are to progress. Built in obsolescence has to be eradicated, we have to make things to last and invest in the infrastructure to pass equipment on from one user to the next, eking every last month of use out of everything.

This is what eReco do. We take stuff from user A, render it safe and try and sell it on to user B. It works but it could work better. Manufacturers stop supporting old software, so that that they can sell new software, and quite often that new software is so ‘big’ in every sense that they need new hardware to run it. Damn it, my beloved iPhone 4 will not take the iOs8 upgrade unless I remove all the music and most of my apps off it first...and then it might actually slow it down!

The obvious idea is that I should upgrade and let the best phone/friend I have ever had go. Why? It does everything I want it to do. I understand how it works. I even use it as a work phone, syncing both sides of my life seamlessly onto one device. I know I could do that with an iPhone 6 too, before anyone points that out, but I don’t bloody need (or want) to do so.

I am not stupid of course.

No, really.

I know that technology sells and makes massive profits and to a certain extent eReco makes money out of that too, but is that sensible? Designing software that works on existing hardware would be much more sustainable. Making cars that can easily last for decades makes sense. We just have to allow the manufacturers to make money out of replacing the engines and gears and all the other gubbins and let the rest carry on forever. We recycle the used bits and everyone can be happy.

In short, we still need to get serious about sustainability.

Second Hand Rose Tinted Spectacles

My dear old Mum used to frequent jumble sales. Done properly back then, jumble sale shopping is akin to the car boot sale nowadays, but in the church hall or the scout hut. The trick was to get there very early and snaffle all the bargains before anyone else could. As my family were involved in the scout movement, who ran a fair few jumble sales in those days, she used to get in before the general public if at all possible. I dimly remember as a child watching her and her friends and deadly rivals rummaging through piles of old tat as if their lives depended on it.

Years later, having had a clear out, I did a car boot and before I had turned off the car engine found myself surrounded by ‘dealers’ to whom I sold my best wares before I even set up my table. Now we have EBay as well, and Facebook groups dedicated to making money out of stuff we don’t want anymore. It is quite astounding what people will buy.

 

Second hand IT equipment is freely available.

EReco has an EBay shop, as do others, (find it on www.ereco.co.uk) and today I discovered that the charities are at it too, the BHF for one. I am sure the vast majority are doing things properly but there are some fairly serious questions I find myself asking.

The obvious one is data security. Whilst the temptation to get £50 (or less, or more, it all depends on what it is) for your old laptop must be very great (or indeed give it away to your local charity shop) is anyone thinking about what is still on the hard disk?

Probably not.

Is anyone thinking about who owns the software? Again, in the non-business world, almost definitely not I am afraid Mr Gates. Sold as seen. Given freely without comeback. Who cares about those pesky licences anyway?

Buyer beware. Just a quick Google search this morning and I found laptops for sale from £5 (plus P&P) to £500 (for a Mac book). I know of a specialist shop which remarkets laptops, who do things right in terms of offering a guarantee, putting on a legal operating system and software etc, and indeed wiping the hard disk to a certain extent. It would not satisfy our standards and I reckon our Ben could get at the data in about fifteen minutes, but it would certainly be better than just hitting delete and emptying the recycle bin. My feel for their wares would be between £150-200 on average. My dear mother would have fainted. She got the collywobbles once paying 50p for a bit of Devon motto-ware china.

Remarketing is good for the environment, as I have mentioned before. Extending the lifecycle of any electrical product is great, as 80% of the environmental damage is done during manufacture. But I have my concerns about the unregulated nature of this business.

My PC at home will have everything on it somewhere. Passwords, account numbers. Apart from the fact that by the time I replace it the thing will be so out of date no one will want it, I would not hand that hard disk to anyone lightly.

So what are the chances of your old laptop falling into the hands of some unscrupulous criminal mastermind? Slim, I will admit. But that is not the point. If you lose your keys, do you change the locks to your house? If you lose your wallet, do you cancel your cards?

Yes, of course you do, because those are reasonable precautions. Well guess what? So is making sure you remove your data from any device you are disposing of. It does not cost much, much less than getting a new key cut.

Throwaway Society

Last week yet another MP resigned after an ill-judged Tweet. Never a day seems to go by without someone in the public eye cocking up social media or making bad decisions about what they allow to get out in the public eye.

The ability to put one’s foot in it seems to be a prerequisite for many modern celebrities. Although to be fair we are all probably the same, but the consequences of opening the mouth without engaging brain are less severe for us ordinary souls.

However, we do all seem to believe that some things will always remain private. Those ill-judged emails, the drunken texts, the office party bum photocopy incident...they are all distant memories no one will ever see again.

Except they will, if you don’t clean or destroy your hard disk or your phone memory.

Most people, and certainly everyone of a certain age (less than forty? Maybe a bit younger), lives on their electronic devices. Our phones go everywhere with us. Our laptops contain documents and spreadsheets dating back years, not to mention passwords, bank account details, credit card numbers and the like. Good grief, when I think about it, I am surprised I ever leave the house.

So when we use them, and abuse them, why are we surprised when it comes back to bite us? If it is not commonsense to tweet whilst drunk or angry or whatever, it is not commonsense to dispose of data storing devices without thinking about the data they still contain?

Do you remember when journalists used to go through bins outside celebrity houses or government offices? It was amazing what people threw away. I am sure it precipitated the rise of the portable shredder, something a lot of people own these days, just to shred their personal correspondence. It was the same thing before the digital age.

We have to wise up. When I was a kid, my parents told me to count to ten before replying to someone if they were annoying me. Today, I tell my son not to get into slanging matches on social media, because it is easy to cause offence or lose a friendship in the heat of the moment, hidden behind the false anonymity of the keypad.

Our next lesson has to be protecting our data.

Do you know that printers often have memory too? It is quite possible to get sensitive data out of a discarded printer of certain types. Fax machines. Mobiles. They all store data and represent a risk. We need to learn to respect that and deal with it, both in terms of keeping these devices safe whilst we own them, and in terms of disposing of them when we are moving on.

Risk Management, Own Goals and Kieran Gibb's Left Leg

Own goals are annoying. As Kieran Gibbs stuck out a foot and ruined my weekend on Saturday evening it occurred to me that fate was against my beloved Arsenal FC. Because even when the cross cum shot hit his errant shinbone, it could have gone anywhere. It was fate that stuck it in the far corner and shoved us on our way to ignominious defeat.

Risk management is an undervalued skill in modern business. It does tend to get lost in the general tedium of processes and procedures, all of which are really designed to prevent something. For instance, I personally loath the culture of excessive health and safety. It is ridiculous that some schools ban their pupils from playing conkers, for example. However, at the core of it all, someone is just trying to prevent unnecessary accidents. (Mind you, is there such a thing as a necessary accident?)

Any business needs to try and remove fate from the equation. ‘Management’ should never trust to luck and hope that our left back won’t bump into the goalkeeper and still be getting up when the ball is heading his way. So a lot of people in little offices spend a lot of time and money trying to avoid the avoidable. It makes sense.

We end up with procedures for everything. And most of them have a flow chart somewhere. Every option and decision has been considered and as long as we stick to the procedures everything will turn out fine. In Arsenal’s case, if our Polish goalkeeper and English left back had managed to shout at each other, thus preventing a collision, Manchester United would never have been handed a one nil lead on a plate. Dear Kieran would then not have spent the rest of the game playing as a shadow centre forward, leaving behind him a gap so huge even Wayne Rooney managed to scamper through to score a second. Yes, we let a man who allegedly looks like Donkey from the Shrek movies score. It certainly turned me a nice shade of green! (And yes, I am bitter. Very.)

The simple fact is human beings do not always follow procedures. Fate sometimes takes a hand but more often than not we think we can cut a corner here or there. Maybe to save five minutes, or maybe because we think we know best. And nowhere is this human trait more obvious than in the disposal of old equipment. (Yes, you knew I would get back on topic sooner or later, but I am not finished with Arsenal yet, believe me. Not by a long chalk.)

There are rules, laws even, and therefore there are procedures which should be followed, or should be. In big companies, and especially in any businesses which are closely regulated, such as lawyers, accountants and medical institutions, ignoring the risks is insane. But people do it all the time.

I am relatively new to this lark, but it already does my head in. Not quite as much as watching Arsenal self destruct, but it is getting there. Why would anyone risk a big fine and possible ruin by letting any old Wayne, Robin or Angel De Flipping Maria take away their old IT equipment? Of course they said they will do it properly and at the wonderful price of FREE! 

Who could resist such a deal because the only risk you have is 2% of your global turnover, severe brand damage and an extremely large dent in your own personal career!

We charge a bit for mileage plus 85p a kilo to collect assorted kit (a bit more if it is hazardous) and charge £5 per hard disk to erase all the data and provide you with all the paperwork you could ever want. More than Wayne Rooney could ever want to read that is for sure. Then, if your kit is re-saleable, we will sell it and after our costs, share the proceeds with you. That is peanuts.

So, to use a reputable, properly accredited IT recycling specialist will cost you a little bit, but you will have followed the letter of the law and have the paperwork to prove it. As Harry Potter said when he was finished with the magical marauders map of Hogwarts, ‘mischief managed’. That is risk management in a nutshell, all done and dusted.

It is what any half decent process will tell you to do. Get a decent supplier, check that they do it all properly and get it done. It’s not rocket science. So why do so many people ignore commonsense and use the first person that says they can do it for nothing?

So, do me a favour. Consider managing your own risks, regardless of your size. And if you are Wojciech Szczęsny, next time you come for a cross, please call very loudly to prevent accidents. Preferably in English so that Kieran definitely gets it...

The Generation Game

Dave Whelan is a football man, ex-professional footballer and now owner/chairman of Wigan Athletic, and right now he is being derided in the media as a dinosaur for his attitude to racism and discrimination.

Mr Whelan has decided that the best man to manage his team, after sacking the last best man to manage his team, is one Malchy Mackay. Mr Mackay, during his time with Cardiff City, although it did not come to light until after he left, was allegedly responsible for sending or forwarding a number of racist and homophobic texts. That scandal stopped him being appointed manager of Crystal Palace back in September, but now he is back.

The appointment met with much criticism, most publicly expressed by the local MP, who urged Mr Whelan not to appoint Mackay. Dave the dinosaur defended himself by making some vaguely racist comments himself, whilst trying to point out that Mr Mackay had not done much wrong.

Now, I am sure you will all be asking yourself what this has got to do with the exciting world of IT asset disposition, recycling and WEEE? Well, stop doubting me and concentrate, because I am about to tell you.

There are huge attitudinal differences between generations. I am 53, I clearly remember Love My Neighbour and Till Death Us Do Part on TV and the ‘humour’ expressed in those two programs alone would get anyone involved in serious trouble these days. My 15yo abhors racism and discrimination of all kinds because he has been brought up to be racially aware and he would be shocked if he saw these ‘comedy’ programs. There is a reason they are no longer aired on the endless loop of Gold TV channels – time has moved on.

Recycling and sustainability are similar. Back when you could be openly racist with an audience of 15 million people there was not a lot of recycling going on. Free love and world peace, yes, recycling absolutely not. 

All the things we now hold dear, plus a few we do not (health and safety springs to my mind) were if not quite non-existent then certainly not mainstream.

In the ensuing forty years or so we have learned a lot and come a long way. But the likes of Dave Whelan, a multi-millionaire owner of sports shops, in his late seventies, are the ones who still sit in positions of influence and power.

And this is why so many important issues are treated too lightly. They have not changed their minds at all, they have just bent with the winds of change enough to get by. This is why lip service is paid to so many important issues. This is why they don’t understand twitter storms, or the strength of feeling when one of their well-laid plans offends people.

I haven’t changed my opinions much since my mid thirties. I have not bought a CD in four years. I listen to Radio Four, and occasionally Radio Two. I am politically aware not active. I get most of my modern references through my son and his friends. In short, I am a normal middle aged man. My attitudes to things like racial equality, homophobia and sustainability are surely shaped by my life experiences and my education in its broadest sense.

I hope I am much more tolerant than Dave Whelan, but he is 25 years older than me, a child of the forties not the sixties. The next generation of leaders, be it politics or business, will be children of the seventies and the eighties. They have been brought up on climate change, on the idea of being truly green, and they will take things to the next level.

Which is good, because we need to raise our game, or, much like Wigan Athletic, we will be heading for League One, not the Premier League.