Abstract Summary
Large organizations have significant impact on cities’ resource footprints. Information and communications technology (IT) plays an important role given its near-ubiquitous use, rapidly increasing demand, and environmental/social impacts from production, use, and disposal (1). This study examines organizational IT equipment use in circular transitions, specifically zooming in on influences of laptop-user perspectives on lifetime extending activities like repair, reuse, refurbishment, and reducing premature replacement. IT decision-makers previously reported pressure from users to prematurely replace laptops with newer, upgraded, or more stylish devices and to purchase higher-capacity laptops than needed for employees’ work, resulting in higher than necessary material and energy consumption (2). Given preferences for new devices, it is also unclear how offering/assigning refurbished devices would be received. Current literature discusses replacement behavior for personal laptops (3) but does not uncover how user perspectives differ and influence company-owned laptop lifetimes. Differences in ownership and responsibility (e.g., paying for repairs and replacements versus the company paying) is likely to result in important behavioral differences. This ongoing study uses 45-minute, semi-structured interviews with ~25 users of company-owned laptops. Participants were selected through a combination of snowball sampling in project partner organizations and utilization of our university consumer panel. Interviewees were asked to discuss expectations on device features and expected lifetimes of laptops, which factors influence their device choices, whether and how they consider circularity in choices and use habits, and which factors increase acceptance of lifetime extensions. Interviews were recorded, transcribed, and coded. Preliminary results suggest that for average employees using low-powered programs like email and video conferencing, choosing work laptops mainly involves consideration of physical features, such as size or keyboard layout. Although interviewees acknowledged the importance of circular IT features (e.g., long-lifetime, refurbishment, repairability, recycled material content, etc.), these features were not decision-making factors when choosing their most recent work laptop. Furthermore, preliminary results suggest that presenting circularity information using tools like digital product passports may encourage more circular choices, such as choosing laptops with circular features, choosing refurbished laptops, or opting for repair over replacement. Most interviewees were not offered refurbished devices, however, a large majority said that if given information on the machine’s performance compared to the needed performance of their specific work tasks, as well as benefits of circularity, they would be likely to choose a refurbished laptop. Their preferences for repair or replacement were largely time-dependent, choosing repair when the time taken does not interfere with their work. Our results contribute to broader understanding of factors influencing the lifetime of laptops used by organizations, thereby helping cities to encourage circular transitions. *references in pdf attachment*
