JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (XOL Africa) — African businesses should rethink how they procure, manage and dispose of technology as rising hardware costs, currency volatility and growing environmental reporting requirements put pressure on corporate budgets, technology provider Qrent said.
The company, which specializes in refurbished technology and IT asset lifecycle management, said circular IT — extending the useful life of computers and other equipment through refurbishment, reuse and responsible recycling — is increasingly becoming a business strategy rather than simply an environmental initiative.
“For a long time, circular IT was something organisations did for their sustainability report. That is changing,” said Kwirirai Rukowo, managing executive for the Middle East and Africa at Qrent. “Boards and finance teams are now asking the same question their IT and procurement teams have been asking for years: how do we do more with less, faster, and with less exposure? Circular IT answers all three.”
Qrent said African companies are facing multiple pressures at the same time, including higher technology costs, volatile currencies, stricter environmental, social and governance, or ESG, requirements and increased scrutiny of supply chains.
The company said these pressures are forcing businesses to examine IT procurement as part of broader financial and sustainability strategies.
In South Africa, JSE-listed companies are subject to climate-related disclosure requirements aligned with the International Financial Reporting Standards’ IFRS S2 standard. Multinational companies operating in the country are also increasingly being asked by global parent companies to demonstrate ESG compliance across their supply chains.
Qrent said IT procurement remains an overlooked component of many companies’ ESG strategies despite the environmental impact associated with manufacturing and transporting new electronic equipment.
The extraction of raw materials, manufacturing and international transportation contribute to greenhouse gas emissions associated with technology products, including emissions categorized as Scope 3 under corporate emissions reporting frameworks.
Qrent said extending the lifespan of devices through refurbishment can reduce demand for newly manufactured equipment and help companies lower part of their Scope 3 emissions.
“Most companies have an ESG report. Very few have ESG embedded in their IT strategy. The two need to be the same document,” Rukowo said.
The company also highlighted electronic waste as a growing concern for African businesses.
Africa produces large volumes of electronic waste, while formal recycling and responsible disposal systems remain limited in many markets. Qrent said companies that retain obsolete computers and other devices without formal disposal processes can face environmental, regulatory and reputational risks.
Its services include IT asset recovery, responsible recycling and lifecycle management, allowing companies to track equipment from deployment through end-of-life disposal.
Qrent said such documentation can help companies demonstrate compliance with environmental commitments and supply-chain due diligence requirements.
The company also rejected the idea that refurbished technology necessarily involves a trade-off between sustainability and performance.
It said enterprise-grade equipment that has been properly refurbished, tested and certified can meet the requirements of many business environments while costing significantly less than comparable new equipment.
Currency exposure is another consideration for African companies, according to Qrent. Because much of the region’s technology equipment is priced in U.S. dollars, exchange-rate fluctuations can increase procurement costs.
The company said local-currency rental and leasing arrangements involving refurbished equipment can help businesses reduce that exposure while providing greater flexibility in technology spending.
“The organisations that will lead on sustainability in Africa are not the ones with the most ambitious targets,” Rukowo said. “They are the ones that have built sustainability into the way they actually procure and manage technology — not as a separate initiative, but as a default operating model.”
Qrent said the approach is particularly relevant to African markets, where companies often face constrained capital budgets, longer infrastructure investment cycles and supply-chain challenges.
Its offerings include refurbished hardware sales, short- and long-term rentals, IT asset recovery, responsible recycling and lifecycle management, allowing organizations to adopt circular IT practices incrementally.
“We are not asking organisations to make a values-based decision,” Rukowo said. “We are offering them a better business decision that also happens to be the right environmental decision. In the current market, those are the same thing.”
Qrent provides refurbished computers, laptops and enterprise IT equipment across the Middle East and Africa, with a focus on extending technology lifecycles while reducing electronic waste and technology-related costs.
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