Using remanufactured laptops supported the use of more circular, decarbonised IT hardware, and also offered close alignment to The Royal Mint's sustainability and overall business plans.
The Royal Mint is one of the world’s leading mints, producing all the coins for the United Kingdom as well as offering a range of precious metals investments and luxury collectables.
The Royal Mint operates an innovative and modern mint with state-of-the-art facilities, machinery, equipment, and techniques. The organisation has a history that spans more than 1,100 years, with its roots in the ninth century and is one of the world’s oldest and most trusted institutions.
The challenge
In 2022, The Royal Mint embarked on a new 5-year plan for the business, of which sustainability is at the heart.
A key part of this is the identification and implementation of
sustainability improvements across all areas of the organisation
including that related to circular economy and net-zero decarbonisation commitments.
One interesting challenge for the Head of Sustainability, Inga Doak, was how to integrate these requirements into the IT team. Focused on server infrastructure, the IT function had already embarked on a cloud adoption strategy aligned with partners that shared the Royal Mint’s sustainability commitments. However, there wasn’t yet any specific sustainability-focused solutions for end user device hardware (eg. laptops).
The process
After attending a webinar by Circular Computing, The Royal Mint’s Head of Sustainability, Inga Doak, was approached to see if she would like to learn more about carbon-neutral remanufactured laptops.
Immediately seeing how this could help the IT team improve their sustainability performance, Inga extended the invite to her IT colleagues as they would be critical stakeholders in any changes proposed. Through the preservation of existing resources, remanufacturing plays an important role in driving a decarbonised, circular economy. Both the Head of Sustainability and Head of IT Operations at The Royal Mint were excited about the prospect of using remanufactured laptops. This not only supported the use of more circular, decarbonised IT hardware, but also offered close alignment to The Royal Mint's sustainability and overall business plans.
After discovering the synergies between Circular Computing and The Royal Mint, conversations focused on laptop requirements, functionality, and a look at suitable makes and models. To demonstrate proof of concept a trial unit was delivered to the IT team to be benchmarked against equivalent new models.
For every laptop bought, The Royal Mint made the following sustainable outcomes:
Reforestation
5 trees have been planted
Water saved
190,000 litres of water saved
CO2 prevented
316kg of Co2 avoided by not buying new
CO2 sequestered
600kgs Co2 sequested from trees planted
"Investing in a sustainable future for all our stakeholders is integral to The Royal Mint’s overall business ambitions. Partnering with Circular Computing - the first company in the world to achieve a BSI Kitemark for their remanufactured laptops – provided us with a fantastic opportunity to demonstrate this commitment. The solution offered by Circular Computing is a great example where remanufactured exceeds new – with their laptops meeting our functional IT needs while delivering a circular, carbon-neutral product.
As The Royal Mint transforms for the future, we want to partner with more organisations like Circular Computing, who support our ambition to be leaders in sustainable precious metals.."
INGA DOAK, Head of Sustainability, The Royal Mint
Quality without compromise
We produce leading brand remanufactured laptops.
Our BSI Kitemark™ certified process remanufactures laptops ‘to equal or better than new’, with up to 40% cost savings compared to the latest models and an RMA of less than 3%.