Virtualization giant VMware is demanding business leaders usher in a new era of e-waste transparency as tech trash continues to grow into a larger environmental sustainability issue.

The United Nations (UN) reported that Earth's population produces 50 million metric tons of e-waste annually, and just 20% is actually recycled for continued use.

And by 2030, e-waste is expected to total 74 million metrics tons globally, according to The Global E-waste Monitor 2020, representing an "alarming" increase of two million metrics tons per year.

The e-waste monitor also highlighted that 82.6% of e-waste in 2019 was unaccounted for. The report allocated .6 million metric tons to household waste bins in EU countries, while the other 43.7 million metric tons ended up in unknown locations, though it was "likely dumped, traded, or recycled in a non-environmentally sound way," according to the report.

Aside from the environmental implications of sending non-biodegradable technology waste to rot indefinitely, it's also a huge waste from a financial perspective. The UN reported that annual e-waste is worth more than $62.5 billion, with 100-times more gold in 1 metric ton of e-waste than in 1 metric ton of gold ore.

Ed Hoppitt, VMware's director, solution engineering, EMEA, noted various existing initiatives to educate, support, and aid consumers in making conscious decisions regarding buying and disposing of electronics.

But the commercial side of the e-waste behemoth is "a little more complicated," Hoppit said.

And though programs like the UK Royal Mint's to recover gold from e-waste for its coins and bars are able to process 90 metric tons of old circuit boards each week, the complexity of the issue means it's still far from solved.

Global digital transformation needs "to balance building the platform for the digital experiences that customers will want tomorrow without throwing out what exists today," Hoppitt explained.

At the end of the day, the biggest portion of responsibility falls on business leaders, not consumers, to balance digital transformation and legacy infrastructure and limit e-waste.

VMware says it continually examines how to extend the life of its own equipment with reuse, resale, and donation programs.

"When equipment is at the end of its useful life, it is decommissioned and then resold or disposed of, depending on the condition and the value. Some equipment, such as laptops and monitors, are also provided as loaner equipment internally," Hoppitt explained.

He says the secret is working with electronics recyclers that are certified for responsible disposal and widely accepted by the industry, including E-Stewards, R2, and ISO 9000, 14000, 450001.

These recyclers and standards support the transportation, destruction, and recycling of equipment at end-of-life in a sustainable way by harvesting components to be repurposed extracting precious metals for resale, and responsibly disposing of the rest, Hoppitt said.

When building an e-waste program, he recommends companies prioritize how equipment should be handled and research trusted e-waste recyclers and responsible disposal vendors "that reflect those priorities."

But ignoring the e-waste your enterprise generates isn't an option — even for businesses using hardware they don't technically own (think public cloud services).

If a business switches cloud providers or services within a provider, it's crucial to consider where the hardware that supported those old services goes.

"Just because it’s not your technology, doesn’t mean you can’t ask questions about how it is disposed of or reused. Otherwise, you are making your ESG commitments someone else’s problem. As business leaders, you need to ask your cloud providers to be transparent about the lifecycle – even after decommission – of the infrastructure that they’re using," Hoppitt urged.