Redemtech: Redeeming health technology

Justmeans' recent conference on Social Media, Technology and Change was well attended by businesses and organizations from across the disciplinary spectrum. Health care was well represented, with Kaiser Permanente being one of the major event sponsors. One organization that seemed to perfectly fit the Justmeans slogan of doing "Business Better" is Redemtech.  This company specializes in what they call TCM, or Technology Change Management. What the heck is TCM and why should anyone care? Well let's start with a few items that have been in the news lately.

One of the social and environmental contradictions of our technology-rich age is the resource-intensiveness of the technologies we take for granted. China recently made headlines by limiting the export of rare earths necessary for many high tech components. While China exports some 95% of the world's supply of rare earths, it is not the richest source of the elements. Instead, China's willingness to mine and export the minerals is based on the government's willingness to pollute vast tracts of land with toxic and radioactive by-products. The Yangtze River is currently being threatened by a huge underground plum of toxic waste slowing working its way towards that important water supply. Occupational health is also less of a concern in China than in some other countries that also harbor rare earths, the US and Australia, for example.  Other ingredients needed to cook up high tech devices, such as coltan from central Africa, also have a history of being linked with conflict, environmental degradation, even war crimes.

On the other end of the supply chain, the recycling of electronic devices is increasingly causing public health and environmental concerns. Publications a diverse as Foreign Affairs, National Geographic, and 60-Minutes have all graphically profiled foreign recycling operations, often located in China, where circuit boards are melted down over open flames to extract valuable resources. Workers do this with no protective equipment, facing serious risks from toxins such as lead. Scrap materials are burned in open, poisoning the air, water, and inhabitants. A recent report by the US Office of the Inspector General has even found that the US federal government has poisoned prisoners by in-sourcing electronic recycling to the domestic prison system, and also shipped electronic waste overseas to be recycled in potentially unsafe conditions.

Enter innovative organizations such as Redemtech. They work with large organizations, such as the Kaiser Permanente health system, to responsibly recycle and repurpose aging electronic equipment. In many cases technology is far from obsolete, and can be resold to other organizations in need. Its not as easy as a Craigslist transaction, since data may need to be expunged, batteries replaced, etc. Organizations such as Kaiser Permanente are able to realize some income by selling their old equipment, purchasers get perfectly usable equipment at a discount, and Redemtech takes a portion of the proceeds for their efforts. As health care becomes increasingly technology-reliant, there is a growing awareness that sustainable health care will look to lower its environmental footprint.

In addition to helping keep useful and valuable equipment out of the waste stream, and working to sustainably spread health care technologies, Redemtech is diversifying, looking for partners to provide equipment to international health organizations in need, and even pairing with Habitat for Humanity to provide refurbished computers so new Habitat homes can be wired.

One conference message was that the Google and social media generation expects their products, services and investments to match their values of social responsibility and environmental sustainability. Redemtech's efforts at sustainably sourcing and sustainably recycling high-tech tools of the digital age seem to acknowledge these goals while lowering the lifecycle costs of technology.