Key insight about the project goes here
Closing the Loop and APG collaborate to make the leasing process of APG’s electronics more sustainable. APG leases its employees’ phones. The devices are ‘waste-compensated’ by Closing the Loop: for one APG device, one scrap phone gets collected and recycled in a country that lacks waste management. This so-called Closed Loop leasing, makes the devices APG employees use, waste-neutral.
Client
Start of the partnership
2021
The Challenge
The Dutch pension fund provider APG had the wish to make the leasing process of their electronics more sustainable. APG already leases its phones for part of its 3.000 employees from CHG-MERIDIAN, a service company specialized in leasing. By choosing for lease instead of ownership, APG already shows that sustainability is on their corporate agenda. Their ambition to have climate neutral business operations in 2030, provides challenges as well as opportunities on multiple levels of its business operations. To further implement sustainability, APG had the wish to lower the environmental impact caused by its tech consumption in a pragmatic, appealing and effective way.
The Service
For every phone APG leases of CHG-MERIDIAN, Dutch social enterprise Closing the Loop collects and recycles one scrap phone from countries that lack formal waste management systems. This waste compensation has been implemented by Closing the Loop’s partner, CHG-MERIDIAN. The service offers a practical first step towards a circular economy by bringing valuable materials from landfill and scrap sites back on the market to be reused.
The Result
The collaboration between APG and Closing the Loop yield valuable results on scarce resources that have been urban mined. By compensating the 2,750 devices that APG leases, 66 grams of gold, 690 grams of silver and almost 26 kg of copper has been retrieved. To add to their climate neutral ambition, APG also saved around 2,000 kg of CO2 by implementing waste compensation. Moreover, employee engagement with APG’s sustainability ambitions could rise, because the service focuses on a product that every APG employees uses every day.
In this way, APG stimulates the circular economy with every phone they lease while creating local impact in countries where it is needed. This needlessly connects to APG’s sustainability ambitions that resulted in efforts throughout its business operations. For example, in greening their offices, transportation methods and waste policies. Adding waste compensation to their already extensive sustainability strategy is another step towards climate neutrality.
