The Sustainable Procurement Best Practices Companies Miss

Every procurement function in every major organisation now has a sustainability policy. Vendor ESG assessments, carbon disclosure requirements, responsible sourcing clauses: the architecture is in place. So why is IT and telecommunications equipment still the single largest segment of global electronic waste?

The answer is a blind spot in how most companies define sustainable procurement best practices. They’ve focused on who they buy from. They haven’t focused nearly enough on what happens after they buy.

The 38% problem

According to Emergen Research, IT and telecommunications equipment accounted for 38.2% of the global electronic waste recycling market in 2024. Not consumer gadgets. Not household appliances. Enterprise IT, the devices procurement teams specify, purchase, deploy and eventually retire, is the dominant category.

That makes procurement the most influential function in determining whether organisations’ ESG supply chain commitments produce real outcomes.

Most of the environmental impact from IT sits in Scope 3: the carbon baked into device manufacturing, logistics and end-of-life handling. Procurement teams that stop at vendor selection are governing the front door while leaving the back door wide open.

And with the wave of corporate IT purchased during COVID-19 now well into its lifecycle, one of the largest refresh cycles in years is already underway.

Where the value disappears

In a conventional model, equipment follows a straight line: buy, deploy, use, dispose. Every cycle repeats the same embedded carbon costs. Every disposal writes off residual asset value. The waste compounds invisibly across the organisation, a few hundred devices here, a data centre refresh there, but it adds up.

Allard Pheifer, Global Lead of Sustainability at CHG-MERIDIAN, calls this “value leakage” and argues most organisations have no idea how much of it they’re generating.

“In a linear model, you purchase a device, use it for a few years and treat the end of that cycle as a disposal cost,” Allard says.

“In a circular model, that same device retains value through its second and third life. You recover cost, reduce carbon and keep critical materials in productive use. It’s not about spending more on sustainability. It’s about capturing value you’re currently throwing away.”

From transactional to relational

The most effective sustainable procurement best practices extend beyond vendor selection to the full asset lifecycle. Instead of managing procurement as a series of one-off acquisitions, lifecycle-led organisations treat equipment as an asset to be managed from purchase through end-of-life.

Contracts include take-back clauses, certified data erasure and remarketing commitments. The financial model shifts from ownership to service-based arrangements where the provider retains ownership and carries the incentive to extend every device’s productive life.

Pheifer points to CHG-MERIDIAN’s own results as evidence of what this approach delivers at scale. Across the company’s global portfolio, 96% of devices returned at lease end are remarketed, refurbished and placed into a second or third use cycle. Only 4% reach true end-of-usable-life.

“The opportunity is there for procurement leaders to drive real change,” Allard adds.

“When you manage the full equipment lifecycle, you strengthen the bottom line and deliver on sustainability goals at the same time. It doesn’t have to be one or the other.”

This is the sustainable procurement best practice most organisations are still missing: managing the full lifecycle, not just the first transaction. For procurement leaders ready to act, the starting point is clear.

Audit current end-of-life handling, embed lifecycle provisions into the next RFP and evaluate service-based models that align financial incentives with sustainability outcomes. The decisions being made now will set the pattern for years to come.