Launch of the FIE / Deloitte ICT Aftermarket Report

On October 1,2019,  the launch of the Free ICT Europe / Deloitte report was done with a press conference in the Press Club in Brussels. The report reveals the impact of the ICT aftermarket to the European Economy and the Environment.

Nurturing the ICT aftermarket, critical for hitting European environmental goals and economy

The growing value of independent providers

We are honoured to have the support of Dan Shefet, the man that had the courage to stand up against  Google and is a leader on the field of internet accountability and the protection of rights. Besides writing an introduction letter, he also provided the introduction at the press conference.

This report is mainly used to inform policy makers, in fact it is a requirement to provide insight and data about the market we represent. It is an achievement to produce this in a market without having the availability of statistics.

(Concept text)

Experts & Advisory towards the EC

For the next 3 years FIE is a member of the ICT advisory platform for the European Commission on matters related to the implementation of ICT standardisation policies. A key element is the Rolling plan that lists all activities and Actions that are required. New actions can be suggested only by the European Commission and the MSP Members. The first meeting took place on June 17-18, where we could see that this group has another angle and contacts as we had up to now. First step is to create awareness about our industry, next we need to see how we can connect our issues to current projects or to propose new standardisation initiatives.

Ecodesign -The Story Continues

The new Ecodesign law for Servers and Storage has raised some questions. On behalf of the European Commission we provided input, aimed at the Firmware element. Our positioning paper* on this is explaining that there should be no discussion if updates would be charged: as these are fixes they should be free of charge.

The law leaves room to ask a fair, transparent and non-discriminatory fee for normal updates; security updates are demanded to be free of charge. According our paper, if a fee is applied, this should only be for upgrades that provide new functionality or performance improvements. Also the terms "fair, transparent and non-discriminatory" need to be interpreted more to a practical interpretation.

For the EC this is not an easy part. To come to a solution currently the option to have a meeting with Digital Europe (OEM's), the EC and Free ICT is being discussed. At our proposal also CIO organisations will be invited. [update: the meeting is cancelled. The decision is now up to the EC]

We are pleased that this process takes place, as it will provide more clarity and might prevents cases and/or complaints in the future.

* A thank you to all that did invest time to create this document. When you would like to receive a copy of the paper, please contact us.

Green Public Procurement (GPP) - Computers

FIE was invited to take part in the revision of the GPP criteria for Computers and Monitors, we joined as stakeholder. The green procurement has a rising interest and adoption; the GPP is no law. The work started with a questionnaire.

The GPP for Datacenter products is still ongoing and a number of suggestions will be along the same path:

• Promote refurbished to be the first option, extend life-cycle by planned upgrading, move to 3rd party maintenance;
• A preference for Used/Refurbished Parts and an independent provider for ITAD and remarketing;
• Overall: make sure that SMEs can participate in tenders.

Bottom line, practice what you preach: politics and EC promote all these kind of developments, this should be reflected in their own IT procurement and management.

New study - Improve Circularity for DC hardware

Free ICT will participate in the CEDaCI project, that will build a Circular Economy (CE) for the Data Centre Industry (DCI) to increase reclamation and reuse of Critical Raw Materials in the sector, extend product life through equipment reuse and remanufacturing, reduce use of virgin materials, waste and environmental impact arising from the growth in redundant equipment and develop a secure and economically viable CRM supply chain for the sector.

At present only 10% of CRM from the sector are recycled and recovered but this will increase to 19% and 24% in 5 and 10 years after the project ends; reuse of equipment will also increase to 65% and 75% respectively and at end-of-life overall product ‘waste’ will be reduced to 35% and 25%.

Clearly our industry is a large contributor to this!