Authors: Vanessa Christabel and Alexandra Goyco-Velez, Smith & AssociatesSmith recently interviewed representatives from large hyperscalers, OEMs, and other key players in the electronics industry under the Circular Drive Initiative (CDI) and Open Compute Project (OCP) umbrella. Through these interviews, we gained a deeper understanding of carbon avoidance and carbon accounting as it pertains to companies that utilize electronic devices in their workflow processes and the changes that should be made for a more sustainable industry. The interviews highlighted key topics, including discussions on amortization, reuse, and insets as areas of concern and consideration. Amortization and Carbon Responsibility Amortization is a specific method derived from accounting that enables an organization to spread costs—typically of longer-term assets—over a period of time. For the purposes of our industry’s needs, amortization will be applied when discussing the longevity of an electronic device and its embodied carbon from the first user to the second user and to any subsequent users thereafter. During the interviews, a central question was raised: Who is responsible for embodied carbon? Coming to a unanimous decision on carbon reporting standards is a multifaceted goal that would require the marriage of reporting standards, best practices, and clear accountability of carbon emissions. Currently, [...]

Author: Jonmichael Hands, Circular Drive Initiative In the dynamic world of data security, standards for media sanitization play a critical role in safeguarding sensitive information from unauthorized recovery. The recent release of the IEEE 2883-2022 standard provides a fresh perspective on media sanitization, tailored to keep pace with modern storage technologies. This article compares the established NIST SP 800-88r1 and the newly minted IEEE 2883-2022, highlighting their global reach, support for contemporary devices, documentation, and compliance criteria.  Global Reach IEEE is an international body, and its standards are widely accepted and used globally. NIST is a Government Authority and non-regulatory federal agency within the U.S. Department of Commerce. NIST standards do often have implications for policy and regulatory compliance Support for modern devices NIST SP 800-88r1 was written in 2014 and published in 2015. The first NVMe SSDs were released in 2014, but NVMe is now the most popular storage interface for SSDs, making up hundreds of millions of devices per year. IEEE 2883-2022 was published in June 2022 and includes the latest media sanitization requirements from modern versions of storage interfaces. IEEE 2883-2022 contains the exact storage interface commands that define a clear and a purge by interface (NVM, SATA, [...]