Organizations across the enterprise looking to transform their business models to meet the growing demands of regulatory changes, key stakeholders and environmentally conscious customers aim to prioritize sustainability in their core operations.[1] According to IDC, “three-quarters (75%) of organizations surveyed consider sustainability and circularity critical factors in their procurement process for IT equipment.”[2] 

With global environmental, social, and governance (ESG) regulation increasing 155% over the past decade[3], there is mounting pressure for companies to focus on defining execution pathways to achieve them. Additionally, beyond meeting these goals, these actions often lead to IT resource optimization which positively impact operation expenses. IDC found that almost two-fifths of line-of-business managers surveyed have improved their financial performance or expect to do so as a result of sustainability-related investments.

IBM is expanding its sustainability portfolio to help clients address their IT carbon footprint while focusing on efficiency and performance, throughout the lifecycle of their datacenter infrastructure. Today we are launching a suite of capabilities aimed at helping our clients achieve their sustainability goals by:

• Identifying and understanding sustainability possibilities with IBM IT Sustainability Optimization Assessment, with the option to leverage IBM’s portfolio of project and labor services to implement these actions
• Evaluating end of life or underutilized IT equipment and placing it back into the circular economy with IBM Asset Recovery and Disposition
• Securely removing end of life data with IBM Data Erasure Services

All of the new IBM solutions can be sold separately or work together as a part of IBM TLS’ end-to-end offerings for a consistent and integrated data center environment.

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Sustainability in the Data Center

For the many enterprises seeking to leverage the benefits of both on-premises and cloud-based infrastructures, adopting hybrid-cloud architectures has become the new imperative. To address this, many businesses are undergoing data center refreshes and/or consolidations and migrating on-prem data centers to co-location facilities or cloud for greater efficiencies and performance with their hybrid cloud workloads.

Cost savings, improved efficiency, greater security, and environmental responsibility are some of the reasons to refresh or consolidate data center hardware and move toward broader data center optimization. Additionally, an improved data center can set up enterprises for a more successful digital transformation. According to a recent IDC survey, on-prem data centers typically operate at 20-40% utilization[4]. This means IT organizations may have the opportunity to increase utilization across their IT environments, reduce their energy costs, and possibly lower their carbon emissions.

IBM IT Sustainability Optimization Assessment

IBM IT Sustainability Optimization Assessment is a globally available remote service that provides actionable recommendations designed to realize performance efficiencies and reduce energy consumption. It is engineered to help clients identify cost take out actions and address their IT carbon footprint within virtualized on-prem infrastructure. The assessment runs planning scenarios for IT optimization and hardware refresh, recommending an actionable plan to consolidate and/or replace hosts. It also estimates cost reductions from the proposed actions and projects improvement in energy consumption and, possibly, carbon footprint. Leveraging AI-driven insights from IBM Turbonomic, IBM TLS can help clients to make informed decisions around achieving sustainability targets throughout the data center lifecycle. 

IBM TLS also offers a variety of services to implement its recommendations with a goal to help clients realize the assessment’s potential benefits and savings. IBM TLS can assist clients with services to advise, build and optimize infrastructure. IBM also offers services to dispose of assets as they are retired, including IBM Data Erasure Services, IBM Asset Recovery and Disposition, and TLS project services including, deinstall/install, MVS hardware resale, data sanitization and logistics to help address the needs of client’s infrastructure.

IBM Asset Recovery & Disposition

IBM’s Asset Recovery and Disposition offering is an environmentally and economically conscious end-to-end sustainability solution that supports enabling a circular economy for clients' de-installed assets. The solution is currently available in the US, UK, Germany, and Switzerland.

IBM can support clients as they prepare assets, remove equipment, assess actual value, and then either resell or recycle those assets. When organizations are supporting a circular economy involving their deinstalled IT assets, their first concern is likely how to manage the security risk around the data that is housed in those assets. IBM TLS also offers data sanitization options, data erasure services, and media destruction services.

IBM Data Erasure Services

IBM offers secure data erasure services leveraging certified Blancco Software Technology across all types of drives and vendor technologies. Our collaboration supports organizations in sanitizing data that’s no longer needed from their IT hardware and devices, including data identified as redundant, obsolete, and trivial (ROT) data. IBM technicians certified to deliver Blancco data erasure software work with clients to identify a data erasure strategy by assessing their environments and assets. After the erasure services are complete, clients receive a tamper-proof certificate of erasure tailored to their requirements. With this documentation, clients can prove handling of end-of-life data, and redeploy, resell, or donate their data storage assets.

IBM Data Erasure services support companies as they work to meet the standards for their secure data erasure in accordance with privacy and security regulations around the globe, including ISO 27001 and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the European Union. Our solutions support more than 25 erasure standards and guidelines globally, including the clear or non-destructive purge contained in the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Guidelines for Media Sanitization, NIST SP 800-88 Rev.1

In addition to these new sustainability service offerings, TLS can provide additional services to aid clients with media destruction; installation and deinstallation; relocation, implementation, and migration and more.

IBM Technology Lifecycle Services Portfolio

These new offerings add to IBM’s existing portfolio of professional services and support of ESG initiatives within an enterprise, including IBM Media Retention Services and IBM Media Destruction Services. IBM Media Retention Services helps clients address security and compliance risks and helps them protect sensitive data stored on damaged media components that need to be replaced. IBM Media Destruction Services provides decommission and disposition services to help organizations dismantle a data center and recycle hardware equipment that’s no longer needed. IBM has been committed to environmental responsibility in all business activities for more than 50 years. With over four decades of experience in integrated, secured and intelligent workflows, IBM can support customers as they maximize value asset recovery and deliver world class sustainability outcomes.

For more information on the offerings announced today, please visit this website or contact your IBM Technology Lifecycle Services representative.