Celebrating Sustainable IT on World Environment Day

Discover how IGEL’s innovative technology solutions and partnerships help reduce e-waste

Plastic pollution is a pervasive issue that affects every aspect of our environment, including our bodies, as we ingest microplastics. World Environment Day 2025 urges us to come together to tackle this critical challenge.

At IGEL, we believe everyone has a role in protecting our planet and reducing plastic pollution and waste. We are on a mission to enable sustainable IT by helping organizations reduce their IT carbon footprint by extending the useful life of their endpoint hardware.

Why sustainable IT is key reducing plastic waste

IT contributes to serious sustainability challenges across almost every industry. According to the UN’s fourth Global E-waste Monitor (GEM), a record 62 million tonnes (Mt) of e-waste was produced in 2022, up 82% from 2010. Furthermore, the report found that e-waste is on track to rise another 32%, to 82 million tonnes, in 2030.

The production and use of new electronic devices is exacerbating this problem. Just reducing the rate of new device purchases can alleviate a significant amount of sustainability drain, not to mention the clear CAPEX savings. Consider for a moment that 83% of a device’s total carbon footprint is produced during the manufacturing process. If we can slow down the adoption of new devices, it can greatly impact e-waste as well as our total carbon consumption.

Next, let’s examine the impact of end-user computing. Research shows that approximately 2.5% of our global emissions originate from end-user computing, and end-user computing devices consume 3% of the world’s power generation. This represents a significant burden on the Earth that we can influence.

IGEL supports sustainable IT by delivering energy-efficient IT solutions and forming strategic partnerships to reduce carbon emissions. Here are some of the ways we are making a difference:

• Extending Hardware Lifespan. We enable organizations to extend the life span of existing devices by optimizing with IGEL OS. This minimizes e-waste. Based on a recent study with Px³, extending the lifespan of 5,000 endpoint devices from 4 to 8 years with IGEL helps achieve a reduction in electricity usage by 157,550 kWh/y.
• IT Asset Disposal. IGEL also supports responsible IT asset disposal to mitigate e-waste and its health impacts. By backing social projects for device reuse and responsible disposal partnerships, including Sun Screen IT, we enhance IT sustainability.
• Energy Efficiency in IT Operations. By focusing on making responsible choices for energy-efficient devices and optimizing the resources utilized by IT and end users, we can reduce CO2 emissions and conserve energy. Selecting responsibly manufactured devices and enabling them to minimize power consumption through more efficient software, such as IGEL OS, can significantly contribute to this goal by reducing power use by more than 22%. Transitioning from Windows to IGEL OS can decrease device power usage by as much as 49%, further lowering energy consumption.
• Partnerships for Sustainability. Through our partnership with Plant for the Planet, together with our customers and partners, we have planted 21,502 trees and supported research in reforestation projects in Mexico, Africa and Indonesia.

Embracing Sustainable IT Beyond World Environmental Day

IGEL’s endpoint strategy for now and next enables enterprise IT to deliver secure, cloud-based digital workspaces that provide device flexibility, energy efficiency, and savings. This lowers greenhouse gas emissions and reduces e-waste.

Learn more about our vision to transform the way the world works and how we are creating better outcomes for people, organizations, and our planet.