What is it?

A comprehensive discovery report on device upcycling in London, commissioned in collaboration with Nominet, the UK’s registry of domain names with a large social impact footprint. The report explores how we might significantly increase the number of upcycled devices from London corporates and public sector organisations that are then made available to digitally excluded Londoners. The report offers insights into the following areas:

1. Research into private and public organisations’ current practices on device retirement, recycling and upcycling and the reasons behind them. This helps us understand the scale and volumes of potential devices that can be repurposed for use by digitally excluded Londoners.
2. Research into the device upcycling market. This helps us understand the scale and nature of the UK’s device upcycling market and the options it presents to organisations wishing to upcycle.
3. Defining the device journey map. This helps us understand the different paths disused or retired devices can take (whether to destruction or recycling and upcycling), and where specific pain points occur along the route to upcycling them.

Why did we create it?

Lack of a (suitable) device is one of the main barriers to people getting online and so one key priority for the Digital Inclusion Innovation Programme is to look at sustainable ways in which we can maximise the number of available devices to Londoners that need them.

This initial discovery report helped us understand the potential of one promising source of devices: upcycled devices from London’s major corporate and public sector organisations and the capacity of the device upcycling market to deal with large-scale upcycling of donated devices.

Who should use it?

Anyone, whether in the public or private sectors seeking to develop policy or programmes of work that involve upcycling of disused / retired devices.

Read our accessible version of the Report on Google Docs.