The increasing digitisation that we have witnessed in the past few years has resulted in increased information and communications technology (ICT) hardware manufacturing, which is not sustainable due to the growing demand for critical materials and the greenhouse emissions associated with it. A solution is transitioning to a circular economy (CE). To facilitate this, boost the data economy and digital innovation, the European Union has introduced digital product passports (DPPs), which should provide information about a product’s lifetime to bring more transparency into supply chains. However, several challenges, namely the lack of findable, accessible, interoperable, reusable ICT and materials data and tools to support its interpretation for decision-making, are present. Utilising ontologies and knowledge graphs is a possible solution. Although the ontology work in the ICT and materials domains has been on the rise, there is a lack of a unified semantic model that can capture the complex, heterogeneous cross-domain data needed for building DPPs of ICT devices such as laptops and data servers. Motivated by this, we present the RePlanIT ontology for ICT DPPs, which captures knowledge on several levels – ICT device, hardware components, materials and the CE itself. RePlanIT’s specification is based on a literature survey, interviews and inputs from domain experts from both industry and academia. The ontology, its utilisation for building a knowledge graph of DPPs of laptops and data servers and its application have been successfully validated in a real-world case focusing on supporting more sustainable ICT procurement in government.

Understanding flows of resource-rich electrical and electronic equipment throughout its life cycle is increasingly important in the development of global circular economies, reflected by heavy legislative focuses on waste prevention and resource use efficiency. This research facilitates broader material flow analysis by characterizing flows of professional IT equipment within the Republic of Ireland, emphasizing the flow of legal exports for the purposes of refurbishment and reuse. The analysis of transboundary movement of non-waste used equipment contributes to a less often measured, but influential, facet of material flows. Eight key exporters of used equipment, comprising original equipment manufacturers, information technology asset disposition companies, and waste treatment facilities, were interviewed to characterize the sector, map the flow of materials, and identify gaps in existing reporting. Interviewed organizations declared exports of used equipment by category using a voluntary declaration form. Two key flows were identified representing currently unreported and unmeasured flows of non-waste professional equipment. A total of 441,261 units of equipment were declared to be exported for reuse from the Republic of Ireland through these previously unmeasured flows in 2019. Product keys developed by United Nations University were used to estimate the weight of total units exported as approximately 576 metric tons, amounting to an additional approximately 9% of the weight of IT equipment collected in the Republic of Ireland in 2018, or 0.1 kg per inhabitant. These quantifications of IT equipment exported for reuse will be a key component of future material flow analyses in the development of a circular economy.