#10 - Sören Enholm - How to navigate toward more sustainable digital equipment?

In this episode, we went to Stockhölm to meet Sören Enholm, TCO Certified CEO 🏷️. For 30 years, TCO has been assessing IT products reaching a whopping 10'000 references today 🤯. We discussed the environmental footprint of digital devices, natural and urban mining, how to secure a qualitative certification process, the current momentum in Digital Sustainability and much more. 

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Learn more about our guest and connect: 
Sören's LinkedInGaël's LinkedIn Gaël's website Green I/O website 

📧 You can also send us an email at greenio@duez.com to share your feedback and suggest future guests or topics.   

Sören's sources and other references mentioned in this episode:
TCO Certified websiteDodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (wikipedia)Responsible Minerals InitiativeThe Digital CollageSystExt (mostly in FR)Germanwatch Electronics Watch Green I/O mid-season wrap-up article

Transcript 
Gael: Hello everyone. In this Green I/O episode, we go to Stockholm. I must admit that during summer it's more enjoyable. In Stockholm, I had the pleasure to meet Sören Enholm the CEO of TCO Certified a world leading sustainability certification for IT products. Why TCO Certified? So far in the show, we had the pleasure to talk about greener Web Dev, greener hosting, greener product management and also how to raise awareness regarding digital sustainability. But I really want to focus more on hardware. As I relentlessly say, when I facilitate Digital Collage workshop, it's the hardware, stupid. And don't get me wrong, I do not insult participants joining a Digital Collage workshop.

I just mocked James Careville's famous sentence: "It's the economy, stupid". No harm feelling. So "it's the hardware, stupid" because the equipments we use in digital technology have massive environmental impacts. From embedded carbon, which is often far bigger than the greenhouse gas emitted during the usage phase, toward pollution and resources exhaustion.

Hardware should always stay on top of our mind as responsible technologists, and this is why I'm so happy to have Sören with us today. So let's go back to our guest and introduce him properly. After graduating in computer science and linguistics at Upsala University, Sören has embraced a very successful career in business development with various companies like Sun Microsystem, Netscape, Apple. All the way up to executive position when he became VP Europe at Symsoft. But 13 years ago, he made a significant change in his career and joined TCO development as its CEO. Under his tenure, TCO Certified successfully reached the milestone of 10,000 products being certified, and it also managed to join the film industry by participating in the Matrix movie.

Welcome, Sören. Thanks a lot for joining Green I/O today. 

Sören: Thank you very much Gaël. 

Gael: So what did I miss in your bio? 

Sören: Well, I think it was, a good, description. I think for of, of my, career. Of course there is, a lot more to why I ended up in, in, in this position. And, I really like to be out in the, in the nature kayaking, mountain biking, or just walking around. and environmental issues has always been on top of my mind.

But, I think historically it, it's been too much connected to activism for me. I'm more of an engineering person and, and I guess that's why I ended up in the IT industry after the university. When the opportunity turned up, at, TCO Development, which is the organization behind, TCO Certified that was really a perfect match for me. It's about, IT products. I work in IT industry, my whole career. And it's also about, sustainability, environmental and social sustainability, which is a big, as I said, interest.

Gael: Yeah. Got it. So you recently launched the ninth generation of certification. Could you tell us a bit more about it? What does it cover? How do you build a framework to support all of this? 

Sören: Yes, it's it's been a really long, journey with TCO Certified. The first generation was launched 30 years ago in 1992. At that time we focused on the use phase of the products, to make the products better for the users. Well, better I guess also from an environmental perspective with, with better energy efficiency.

But the main thing was ergonomics for the users and, and user safety. Most of the challenges connected to the use phase of the products have been solved during the years, but, now we see more and more challenges in the whole manufacturing phase with the big global complex supply chains of the products and also,when the products can't be used any longer and, and, should be taken back and recycled which doesn't really happen. So, so now the certification is really about both environmental and social, sustainability in the whole life cycle from the mines, all the way to, responsible take back and recycling. And what we have been focusing a lot on for generation nine is to work on criteria that that puts the IT products in a more circular model, life cycle model.

Gael: Could you give us example, like one or two examples of criteria that enabled us to achieve a more circular economy, as you say. 

Sören: Yeah, yeah. Since lots of the footprint, environmental and social footprint is in the manufacturing phase and also at the end of life. Really the, the, the main focus is to keep the products in the use phase as long as possible. We have, created criteria making it easier to maintain the product, to change batteries or other consumables, which, have usually a shorter life cycle than the rest of the product.

It should be easier to, to take the product, apart to repair it or to upgrade it also, to enable a second life. And, a third life perhaps of a product. So when the first user can't use it any longer of summaries and maybe another can still use it, but then it has to be prepared for refurbishment as well.

Sören: So this kind of criteria we have focused a lot on for generation nine, and we think that is really one of the key areas today.

Gael: If I understand it well, for instance, a laptop cannot be certified by TCO if you cannot easily replace the battery. Or do you have some kind of ranking system from something as bad as a sealed battery and something as good as a super easy, with a standard screw way of replacing a battery? 

Sören: Yeah. Yeah. Preferably, the battery should be replaceable without tools at all. 

Gael: Fair point 

Sören: Yeah, exactly. But the requirement we have is that it has to be replaceable with standard tools, you know, standardized tools you can buy in any hardware store.

Gael: not something like the one Apple, uses at the moment and offers, for instance, for their smartphones, where you've got specific screwdrivers that you could not find in the regular shop. 

Sören: No exactly. We, that, that's, we don't allow that. We think that is really bad for repairability and, and for instance, changing the battery.

Gael: Well, that's a very interesting line of thought because I would love to hear what you think about the Repairability index that has been pushed both in France and across Europe. Is it aligned with what you're doing at TCO? Do you see any pitfalls at the moment? 

Sören: No, it's definitely in line with what we do, regarding repairabil