BT is partnering with Cisco to leverage the networking giant's end-of-life asset decommissioning program in hopes of reaching a state of entirely circular products, networks, and operations by 2030, with expansion across the supply chain before 2040.

According to Sarwar Khan, senior manager of global digital sustainability for BT, the two companies are working together to "simplify the returns process, bringing end-to-end visibility to our customers," he wrote in an email to SDxCentral.

This move is the newest initiative of BT Group's manifesto pledge, which includes circularity commitments and targets. The circular economy model strives to keep raw materials in use at the highest quality for as long as possible to decouple resource consumption from enterprise growth.

When such a decoupling occurs, enterprises reuse, recycle, or refurbish end-of-life products to provide material for new production. In a successful circularity model, enterprises no longer require increased amounts of virgin materials in tandem with their growth.

"The focus of the program is to support our commitment in the BT Manifesto to build a more circular BT and for our ecosystem. This program helps to underpin this," Khan said.

BT's customers will be responsible for their own decommissioning process, or they can request a quote for decommissioning and recycling services from BT if they are a managed services customer, Khan explained. In those scenarios, data from assets will be "sanitized with a data destruction certificate per asset where appropriate," he said.

Khan noted BT will likely see reductions to its own carbon footprint as a result of the partnership with Cisco, but the focus of the program is a full lifecycle approach, not just on BT. This lifecycle approach is also in line with the Greenhouse Gas Protocol and ISO standards.

Cisco ensures the end-of-life assets it processes are responsibly decommissioned with the ISO14001 environmental management system standard to demonstrate compliance to standards, Khan said. Cisco also has to comply with WEEE and ROHS compliance standards for circularity.