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Blog: Intel and CompuCom Leverage Technology to Drive Sustainability

Blog: Intel and CompuCom Leverage Technology to Drive Sustainability

Most people today understand the urgent need for sustainabilitythe importance of slowing or even reversing the numerous environmental challenges that threaten our planet:

  • A burgeoning global population
  • The immense volumes in landfills of wastes of all kinds, including technology-related
  • Air, groundwater and habitat degradation – on land and sea
  • Extreme weather patterns and rising temperatures

In response, most companies place some degree of emphasis on sustainability as part of their corporate initiatives, recognizing their potential impact in adding to the problem and the need to mitigate that impact. 

Here at CompuCom, we too understand our role and the impact we can make; we encourage everyone to work together to promote a greener world. That’s why we’ve made sustainability a core part of our culture and every aspect of our business and our customer relationships.

Our holistic approach focuses on making sustainability a key part of everything that we do. We train our employees to understand and appreciate what sustainability is and how they can contribute to it. We help our customers meet their sustainability goals and work with our partners to identify innovative solutions that can have a measurable impact. And wherever possible, we leverage technology to support our sustainability initiatives. 

We’d like to share a few innovative ways CompuCom has made sustainable technology a day-to-day practice and a foundational principle.

It Begins With Culture and Passion - The Live Green Initiative

We established Live Green, a comprehensive sustainability program focused on helping customers reach their sustainability goals, minimizing their footprint through socially responsible technologies and processes. More than an advisory team that advocates on behalf of greener practices, the Live Green initiative is truly integrated into every aspect of how we do business. While we currently have a Sustainability Governance Council, we also look to infuse sustainability in everything that we do. 

Most importantly, we model sustainable practices as a way of encouraging others to do the same. It’s all part of our belief that everyone—every individual, every organization—has a role to play in creating a sustainable future. 

Applying technology to reduce CO2 emissions and conserve energy

We are collaborating with Intel to leverage the capabilities of the Intel vPro platform through these effective strategies:

  • Resolving computer issues through remote remediation – The goal is a zero-dispatch edge: managing and repairing devices remotely without having to roll out gas-powered, CO2-emitting service vehicles. The remote management features of Intel vPro technology bring us even closer to that goal, providing the ability to access and manage devices remotely, inside and outside of Windows regardless of power state.

We incorporated the Intel vPro platform into our Service Desk solution, a key component of our Employee and Technology Support offer, to enable our technicians to perform remote diagnostics and repairs on unattended computers and, unlike traditional support models, can do so without any engagement from the user. Remote troubleshooting and repair capabilities help reduce the need to dispatch IT service personnel to the service site or shipping a replacement device for faster issue resolution and improved user experience. It means one fewer vehicle on the road, less gas consumed, fewer costly deskside visits, and a faster return to productivity. Even a 10 percent reduction in dispatch calls can make a significant impact. 

  • Saving energy through optimized power state management – A PC in sleep mode is still consuming power, running up utility bills, and needlessly consuming natural resources. And yet, at night and on weekends in office parks across America, you can hear the warm hum of desktops and other devices carelessly left on at a cumulatively great cost. In fact, according to an Intel technical paper on sustainability, as many as half of American office PC users usually leave their devices on at the end of the workday, wasting significant amounts of energy and driving up utility bills: an estimated $2.8 billion each year powering more than 100 million idle PCs. 

We recommend a solution: optimized power state management capabilities of Intel vPro platform-based devices. This feature can turn devices on and off remotely to match usage patterns, reducing unneeded energy consumption and lowering utility costs. Intel vPro technology enables IT to control power status remotely, conserving energy and reducing power costs even when devices are outside the corporate network. Power optimization has the added benefit of automatically scheduling updates and patches during times when the PC is not in use, avoiding workflow disruptions while keeping systems current. 

Removing devices from the waste stream

Each year our company processes thousands of out-of-service devices and other e-waste products, continuously striving to minimize their environmental impact through best-known methods and strategies:

  • Extending the life of devices through sustainable IT procurement practices– We recommend sustainable device options that are energy-efficient and long-lasting, minimizing the number of devices in the market and in landfills. We select energy-conscious transportation and shipping methods for new devices, as well as disposal methods that pose less risk to the environmental.
  • Minimizing waste through IT Asset Disposition (ITAD)  – Our focus on IT Asset Disposition strives to reduce the amount of waste in landfills while improving the security of device asset disposal. We recently invested in a unique shredder for our Advanced Configuration Center that reduces many pallets of waste to a single pallet volume, pulverizing the contents beyond readability before transfer to an R2 certified recycler. ITAD also wipes sensitive data off devices before reuse, resale or disposal, helping prevent sensitive data from falling into the wrong hands at a cost of millions.
  • Maximizing the use of devices by reselling and donating to those in need– One way to reduce the amount of technology destined for the landfill is to extend its useful service. CompuCom is always looking for new opportunities to restore and donate usable devices to the less fortunate, charitable organizations, and other worthwhile recipients – whether our own hardware or in cooperation with customers and partners.

A continuous quest for new and effective innovations

Our culture of following sustainable business practices also encourages people to create those practices as well: noticing more efficient ways to reduce/reuse/recycle. CompuCom urges its people to bring their ideas to the Sustainability Governance Council to see if it’s something that can be introduced as a new best practice. 

In fact, recently, one of our associates identified how to analyze battery usage to understand what different factors within the OS might be drawing battery power – and hence impacting overall battery life. That led to the development and testing of the Intel Battery Life Diagnostic Tool, an add-on to the Intel vPro platform, to help IT managers monitor and assess the battery life impact of IT builds on Intel vPro systems. 

This tool looks at all activity—inside and outside the OS—and provides a detailed and actionable report of what’s running and which elements may be detracting from battery life. This visibility enables IT to decide whether to let those elements run or turn them off to save power and extend battery life. Currently, we are running tests on the battery life diagnostic tool to ascertain whether it can provide a measurable power-conserving impact; initial results are looking positive.

Pursuing the three P’s of sustainability: planet, people, prosperity.

The importance of sustainability cannot be overstated: not just for our company, but throughout our community, across continents, and touching every corner of the planet. Adopting even the most modest changes—like reducing battery usage, repairing devices remotely, extending battery life, minimizing waste impact—can add up to a significant difference for our future. 

We continue to work with our associates, customers, and partners to identify even more innovative solutions to advance our waste-free vision. From each individual contribution to our collective “green” story, we are proud of how far we’ve progressed—and optimistic about arriving in a cleaner, smarter, greener future we all built together. 

Find out more about how we support sustainability efforts by reading the 2020 Sustainability Report for insight into our vision of a greener and more energy-efficient tomorrow.