Circular Electronics

When designing new IT hardware, we keep present and future needs in mind. The whole lifecycle of the product is meticulously thought through, to make sure it performs best while also having a positive impact on sustainability.  ​

Key attributes considered within the design phase

• Material sourcing
• Energy efficiency
• Modularity
• Recyclability / End of life
• Prolonging life
• Greenhouse gas reduction
• Traceability

By considering all those attributes we design the most innovative sustainable solution. We ensure our product lasts in use for a long time while keeping performance at the top. It is conceived with modular elements, to be reused, repaired, and refurbished. In addition, easy access to the device and the material used, make it easier to disassemble and recycled post consumption. As such, it lowers the product carbon footprint and increase product residual value.

Everything within an IT device has an impact especially its supply chain. Population increases induce a daily growing demand for materials. As post-consumer recycled material is limited, the industry is highly dependent on the mining sector for the next decades, having a negative impact on the environment. To shift such practices, we are working on the development of local recycled sources for our components and improve our engagement toward more responsible practices within our supply chain.

To gain transparency over our supply chain, we are partnering with suppliers engaging for sustainable practices, with a goal of having a 100% fair, and as local as possible, supply chain for our procurement. We aim to source our material 100% from recycled sources, saving waste from landfills and raw material extraction from earth.

While others choose to outsource manufacturing to cheap-labor countries, Prime Computer assembles its products locally in Switzerland. Thus, we guarantee the highest quality of products, fair payment of employees and autonomy in production. At the same time, we cut intermediaries and ensure all by-product and waste are considered and optimized. Our assembly line is based in our headquarters in St. Gallen, Switzerland which results in shorter lead time for our customers and helps us to be more flexible. The production of our devices is efficiently designed to reuse, reduce, and recycle all used resources.

We integrate sustainable business practices in all our operations. Because our devices are assembled in Switzerland, we guarantee product quality, and promote local labor and fair working conditions.

Because changes need to be co-created with stakeholders, we build awareness among customers, suppliers, and partners to engage them into a common journey towards successful sustainable practices. Everyone has something to gain from a circular business model, as it creates added value for all stakeholders.

Our goal is to anchor sustainable values within society. The core of our communication is to motivate people, businesses and partners to take action for sustainability – in how they buy and use IT hardware as well as how to live sustainably now as well as in the future. As one of the first hardware companies to become climate-neutral, we are a role model for an entire industry. To help our ecosystem to acknowledge and act, we provide the necessary tools and distribute campaigns that show the social, environmental, and economic impact of our green IT hardware.

Electronic products are changing at a very high pace, technology evolves, and devices soon become outdated. As conventional devices are not designed to be repaired, upgraded, or recycled, they create a lot of waste and polluting activities. Furthermore, due to programmed obsolescence designed by profit-driven companies, consumers are buying new devices after only a few years.

We denounce such a system, and we are proposing wiser consumption where materials are used longer while keeping up with the technology and performance pace. Products upgradability, energy efficiency and recyclability will create more local jobs while cutting down emissions.

Currently almost all our electronic waste (e-waste) is ending up in low-income countries’ landfills. E-waste is improperly disposed and hazardous residues leach into the soil.

That’s why we are developing innovative systems such as our second life program, where we collect unwanted electronics with partners to reuse, refurbish, recycle parts and elements from products. Today there are big challenges in sorting and recycling e-waste. There are no breakthrough technologies yet that could simplify this process and reduce costs. But we are focusing on improving our products’ end of life, by making them easy to sort and disassemble to leave landfilling in the past and increase their recyclability.

Our Second Life Cycle

Often, we let our outdated electronic devices gather dust in a drawer where they remain unused for several years. Today’s electronic products are disposed with very little or inexistent residual value at the end of their life. Reverse logistics seeks to change such a behaviour, this is the process in the supply chain that deals with the return of many supplied goods to inventory. The concept links product end of life to the manufacturing of new components. Thanks to it, current e-wastes is transformed into valuable raw material for the manufacturing of new product, creating added value from e-waste.

We aim to be a pioneer and create such reverse logistic facilities, recovering waste to raw material, to close the circular economy loop. Reverse logistics is the key enabler to successfully decrease a product’s carbon footprint, as it lies essentially within the manufacturing phase. This way, we enable our business to decouple our economic growth from earth mining to city mining.