We invite everyone to familiarize yourself with the another case study created within the Circular Public Procurement.

The business model of Inrego consists in purchasing used ICT equipment, refurbish it, clearing all the data it contains and re-selling it, leasing it or renting it to new customers.  

Circularity of business model:

Inrego reuses material flows by purchasing ICT equipment from users that consider them as waste or no longer useful. Once they acquired this equipment, they prevent its disposal by refurbish it and keep it in the economy at a high-value level.

This business model also reuses the new to introduce new ICT equipment in the economy, by leasing and renting equipment to their customers, which allows for proper maintenance and promotes long-life of equipment. Furthermore, they can access different markets (in level of quality expected) which creates more chances to keep ICT products being used as equipment and not harvested for their parts or materials.

Other benefits:

Inrego provides customers that are interested in a non-new ICT equipment an opportunity to acquire this type of products, either as a sale or a rental or leasing agreement. This prevents the demand for new equipment, and hence, extraction of virgin raw materials for their production. Furthermore, selling their used equipment is a responsible manner for disposal for organizations.  

Inregio can also collaborate with manufacturers and make synergy contracts which can guarantee a buy back of a certain amount of equipment after a period of time. This provides certainty to the manufacturers of an expected return value after three years which they can use to offer lower prices to their potential customers.

Main Barriers:

One of the barriers they face is that organizations (which are supplying them with used ICT equipment) do not have the proper systems or resources in place to collect, store and sell their used ICT equipment to companies like Inrego. Furthermore, some organizations still show a resistance to service (rental/leasing) agreements, based on a notion of purchasing being a better option.

Participating in public tenders can also be challenge. Some of the barriers include misconception from municipalities about not being able to purchase non-new ICT equipment; additionally, some specifications put in the tender can only be met by new equipment, essentially blocking refurbished ICT suppliers. Furthermore, even when re-used framework contracts may be assigned, Inrego has experienced that users inside the municipality might not be aware or them or lack incentives for requesting refurbished ICT equipment.