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Nielsen Meets its 2020 Goal of Ensuring Zero Percent of its Global Electronic Waste Goes to Landfills

3 minute read | September 2020

We are excited to share that Nielsen is diverting 100% of our information technology equipment from landfills for end-of-life management in order to be recycled, refurbished or reused. Through Nielsenโ€™s non-financial materiality assessments, we know that addressing climate change and mitigating the ethical, social and environmental impacts of our value chain are fundamental issues to operate as a responsible company. As part of those impacts, waste management is one of the most critical business areas where we can make a relevant impact and drive our environmental strategy forward.

โ€œWe are proud to have delivered on our 2020 commitment to ensure resourceful and responsible management of our e-waste,โ€œ said Yamini Dixit, Director, Global Responsibility and Sustainability at Nielsen. โ€œWe understand the potential of electronic waste as a toxic pollutant and its impact on our environment and health, and we take Nielsenโ€™s role in its lifecycle seriously. From consumption to disposal, we seek to drive efficiencies that will help minimize our global waste footprint and its negative effects.โ€ 

In 2016, we set out to create a roadmap to define and measure Nielsenโ€™s different waste streams, and we determined that electronic waste (e-waste) was a significant contributor to the overall waste footprint of the business. As a result, in 2017, we established a key performance indicator for Nielsen to ensure that none of our global e-waste would be sent to landfills by the end of 2020. 

When Nielsen set its goal, a due diligence effort was initiated by our infrastructure team to assess all electronic items managed by Nielsen, giving us a clear understanding of our usage and disposal processes. Nielsenโ€™s global portfolio of the electronic waste management vendors was then vetted against specific economic and environmental criteria to evaluate their current processes and requirement gaps. โ€œThe Nielsen global infrastructure team initiated this effort to ensure we continue doing our part in finding environmental efficiencies in our processes,โ€ said Leah Morris, Senior Manager, Technology at Nielsen. โ€œThe way we chose to do so was by ascertaining that we have visibility into every electronic device in all countries we operate in, so we can deliver on Nielsenโ€™s goals.โ€

Using the information from these assessments, Nielsen made the decision to revamp the current vendor portfolio and collaborate only with those who supported our goal of responsible disposal of our e-waste. By 2019, we had identified and onboarded three primary vendors that are ensuring that all e-waste from Nielsen is reused or recycled. Nielsen also retained secondary vendors in places where global vendors are unable to operate. Less than 3% of Nielsenโ€™s e-waste portfolio falls in these areas, and the requirement continues to be for 100% of our devices to be disposed of responsibly.

This has been a collaborative effort and win across Nielsen functions, with a unified goal to drive sustainable change across our value chain. Nielsenโ€™s vision for the future continues to be zero tolerance for adding waste to landfill, and ensuring we build processes and partnerships that uphold our commitment to responsible citizenship.