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There has been a lot of focus on corporate social responsibility, with even the government now getting into the act mandating CSR spend. This seems to imply that outside of the mandatory spending on CSR, Corporates can afford to be socially irresponsible. Such behavior has led to significant challenges with exploitation of natural resources and communities. We need to change the paradigm from Corporate Social Responsibility, to Corporate Responsibility and thus bring the significant competencies that exists within the Corporation to solve the challenges we face as communities - rain water harvesting, waste management, and the like.

One immediate area that Corporates can bring an immediate, significant and noticeable impact is in the management of IT assets. Most IT assets from servers to phones, have a depreciable life of three to four years but an economic and functional life that far extends it. Most of these assets end up in bonded warehouses, gathering dust until they are given off to an e-waste handler for final disposal. What a waste! Especially when you consider that the manufacturing of each of these assets takes up almost eight times the energy as its full functional life. In not extending the life of these assets, Corporates are negatively contributing to an existing and growing problem of efficient returns management and pollution. There is another way to handle to this!