Why Others Are Doing It

"Companies leading the way in environmental, social and governance policies average 25% better stock performance." -Goldman Sachs, July 2007

As environmental awareness has increased, there has been an accompanying shift in the historically conflicted relationship between business profitability and environmental stewardship. A consensus is emerging that taking care of the environment can in fact be good for business and not simply drive up costs, drain profits, or otherwise hurt business results.

Source: Forrester Research

Companies implementing environmental strategies or Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programs may avoid environmental missteps that can create public relations nightmares, destroy markets and careers and knock millions off the value of a company or an industry.

Policies & Government
Businesses and governments are making decisions on how to recycle their end-of-life devices and systems. These decisions will transcend the environmental initiatives and turn to privacy and disclosure laws in the United States.

The Federal Government, Federal Communications Council (FCC), Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and others have passed and are enforcing laws that govern the security and disclosure of government, business and consumer information.

The laws listed below and many others are driving businesses to properly manage electronic devices and systems through the end of their life cycle and help determine the most appropriate way to properly recycle electronics so that critical and confidential information does not get into the wrong hands which can put businesses and governments on the wrong side of the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) equation.


European Union (EU)
The European Union has passed strong legislation prohibiting the dumping of commercial and consumer end-of-life electronic products into landfills and eighteen states of the United States are adopting forms of this legislation. The legislation not only prohibits the dumping of electronics into landfills but it charges that the manufacturers are responsible for clean up, implements stiff fines and possible jail time for offenders. Legislation such as Sarbanes-Oxley, HIPPA, GLB and ASIS require companies to properly manage customer and company information and to properly destroy the information when end-of-life equipment is retired.


Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE)
The EU is in the lead with its restrictions on hazardous substances (RoHS) and Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) regulations. WEEE requires manufacturers to provide end-of-life recycling programs for devices and systems. If manufacturers do not comply, EU countries have the right to halt all shipment of new products to destinations in their country as well as institute heavy fines that manufacturers will have to pay to resume operations in an EU county.

WEEE compliance aims to encourage the design of electronic products with environmentally-safe recycling and recovery in mind.


Restriction on Hazardous Substances Directive (RoHS)
Restricts the use of six hazardous materials in the manufacture of various types of electronic and electric equipment.

RoHS compliance dovetails into WEEE by reducing the amount of hazardous chemicals used in electronic manufacture.


Sarbanes-Oxley
Federal law passed to promote corporate responsibility, financial accountability and tracking (computer) asset disposals equipment.


FACTA (Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act)
Federal law designed to reduce the risk of consumer fraud identity theft created by improper disposal of consumer information.


HIPPA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act)
Prevent abuses of personal health information.


GLB (Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act)
Protect customer sensitive data found in financial institutions.


CPNI (Customer Proprietary Network Information)
Customer Proprietary Network Information (CPNI) is the data collected by telecommunications corporations about a consumer's telephone calls. It includes the time, date, duration and destination number of each call, the type of network a consumer subscribes to, and any other information that appears on the consumer's telephone bill.

Although telecommunications companies were previously able to sell this data to third party companies for marketing purposes, the Telecommunications Act of 1996 required telecommunications companies to obtain customers' approval prior to sharing their CPNI with third parties.