Markit, received an Outstanding Case Study Certificate from the Sustainable Purchasing Leadership Council (SPLC). Markit was awarded recognition for its contribution of a valuable case study, “Providing Access to Sustainable IT Products Through a Global Marketplace”, to the online library of case studies in SPLC’s online community (members only). We make it available here on SlideShare too.

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CASE STUDY
Providing Access to Sustainable
IT Products Through a Global
Marketplace
Markit
Submitted by: Robin Gurney, Content Strategist

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Abstract
In January 2020, Markit began a project to raise awareness of, and provide access to, available (in-
stock) IT hardware and accessories that meet various environmental standards in 35 countries. The
main objective is to serve the growing demand in sustainable IT procurement from Markit’s
10,000+ international clients (including 20% of Forbes 2000).
Within one month over 25,000 IT products had been labelled with various tags e.g. TCO Certified,
EPEAT, ENERGY STAR, FSC, PEFC, 80PLUS and noise emission levels.
Through the online Markit marketplace IT buyers can now easily find, compare (price, availability
and delivery times can be compared in real time) thousands of “sustainable IT products”.
This project is part of a wider Markit initiative to Help IT procurement in international “Go
Greener” and standardise their sustainable indirect IT purchasing requirements and to inspire
other IT resellers to follow suit.
Summary
Goals Strategies Results
Provide 10,000+ Markit clients in 35 countries with
access to IT hardware and accessories
with recognised sustainability/environmental crede
ntials
Implement highly
visible search
filters in the Markit
IT product
catalogue
Over 25,000 IT products now
labelled and highly visible in
the
Markit marketplace/catalogue.
Raise awareness of the ability of international
companies to easily find, compare and buy
sustainable IT products
Blog posts, social
media postings,
entering awards,
PR, events,
presentations etc.
Too early to say. This is a very
new initiative but the general
feedback from clients, partners
and our staff has been very
positive.

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Goals
Why provide 10,000+ Markit clients in 35 countries with access to IT
hardware and accessories with recognized sustainability/
environmental credentials?
Whilst intent and theory and talk is all good for raising awareness,
many businesses are so busy that the easiest way for them to get on
board with sustainable IT purchasing and procurement is to
make sure the products are in stock, easily discoverable, simple to
purchase and with transparent data allowing them to
compare price, delivery and other terms with other products in real
time.
Why Raise awareness of the ability of international companies to
easily find, compare and buy sustainable IT products?
There are two reasons.
To position ourselves as thought (and action) leaders in terms of
supporting sustainable IT procurement options for international
companies.
By making our offering more visible it will hopefully encourage
others to follow the lead. If we can inspire others in the marketplace
including our competitors to offer more sustainably accredited IT
products, then the overall demand could increase, and this may push
back up the supply chain to encourage more brands to get their products certified. That’s a win for
everyone.
Strategies and Actions
We have been considering for some time how to increase our handprint in terms of
supporting sustainable IT hardware and accessory procurement. At Markit we have a “mission to
help our clients succeed” and it’s become increasingly clear that demand has risen for transparency
in terms of the sustainability credentials of the products we sell. Things came to a head when
two of our international clients requested that we complete an Ecovadis assessment. This is
currently in progress.
The key players in this initiative are:
• The executive and product development teams at Markit
• CNET
• 6 “accreditation bodies/labels”: TCO Certified, ENERGYSTAR, EPEAT, FSC, PEFC, 80PLUS
25,000 IT Products
Labelled and Available
Markit has implemented
environmental impact
labelling on 25000+ IT
hardware and accessory
products available and
through its marketplace in
35 countries.
• TCO Certified
• EPEAT
• ENERGY STAR
• FSC
• PEFC
• 80PLUS
• Noise emission levels
(db)

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Long term goals are still being defined but in the short to medium term we are looking to raise
awareness and actual purchase levels of IT products that meet certain standards/ hold relevant
sustainability credentials.
Together with our Head of Operations, Head of Marketing, Head of Sales, Head of Development and
CEO we concurred that we should evaluate what impact our solution currently has on sustainable
indirect IT procurement and which steps we could take to improve. Getting executive level
commitment was rather simple because we care about the environment as individuals.
CNET product descriptions are fed into our catalogue and proprietary software matches clients
(varying) product searches with appropriate items. Over 3 million unique IT products are available
through the Markit catalogue globally. CNET also have integrated filter options for TCO Certified,
ENERGYSTAR, EPEAT, FSC, PEFC, 80PLUS plus decibel limit filters for shredders, scanners etc.
Once the decision was made and the labelling options chosen the development activated the filters.
Filter options were placed high the hierarchy, so they are immediately visible when browsing
product categories or the product descriptions themselves. See fig.1 below for a snapshot from the
Estonian country catalogue. It shows hundreds of notebook models that meet EPEAT, ENERGY
STAR or TCO Certified standards. You can access/test the Markit catalogue
yourself at https://www.markit.eu/Catalog.aspx without registration and see
which available products are certified (the quantity for each varies country to country of course).

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Measurement and reporting will consist of knowing how often these filters are activated per
country/product category etc. and how many purchases are subsequently made. More granular
measurement may be activated if we see a reasonable volume of usage.
Financial Information
There is no set budget for this project nor are their financial goals sets.
We can say that the main resource requirement is time: for research, dialogue with partners &
clients, product development - all these areas are handled in-house.
Results
There are no measurable results yet. Tracking measures are in place to show how many
“environmentally labelled” products are seen, filtered and purchased. We will monitor for 6 months
and review and almost certainly publish results.
Benefits
We are not able to quantify any benefits yet.
The key soft benefits have been:
• Increased awareness internally of the sustainability challenges facing our clients.
• A subsequent motivation to help them in this area.
• Executive commitment to keep this on the agenda and move it forward.
• Increased ability to serve our clients’ needs in terms of sustainable IT procurement.
Lessons Learned
This Could Have Been Done Earlier and There’s Lots of Potential
This could have been done earlier if CNET had made us aware of this actively or indeed if we
had explored the possibilities earlier. The functionality was always there but no attention was
specifically drawn to it (by CNET). Also having analysed CNET feed more closely we see that
some product codes do not come with the environmental info added so they are not appearing
in search as environmentally tagged. This is an issue that the accreditation bodies should
discuss directly with CNET. We see more labelled products in Europe than in US or Canada.
We do not believe this is because they do not exist in US and Canada but simply because fully
labelling has not occurred.

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References and Additional Resources
1. We would ask that you read these two blog posts which can clarify the context of this project
• IT Procurement can go greener https://www.markit.eu/ww/en/b-sju8/it-procurement-
can-go-greener
• IT Sourcing - Performance with Sustainability https://www.markit.eu/ww/en/b-wo3p/it-
sourcing-performance-with-sustainability
2. You can also access/test the Markit catalogue
yourself at https://www.markit.eu/Catalog.aspx
3. Attached is an xls showing which IT product categories are covered by which standards.
Footnote/About Markit
More than 10,000 companies in 35 countries trust and use Markit to purchase their IT products,
including 20+% of the Global Forbes 2000 and Fortune 500 companies. Companies such as ABB,
AGA (Linde AG), Coca-Cola, Danfoss, Ericsson, Johnson & Johnson MetLife, Michelin,
Rezidor/Radisson, Roche, Sanofi, Schott, SEB, Siemens, Skype, Telenor, Tieto, TIKTOK and many
more are solving numerous indirect IT purchasing issues with Markit. In 2019 they have saved an
average of 12.5% on average market prices and thousands of hours in reduced purchasing process
time.
At Markit, we believe IT purchasing should be simple, transparent and efficient – in a way that not
only saves money on product prices but reduces purchasing process time massively. We're
passionate about helping our clients succeed in achieving the lowest possible total cost of purchase.
Our Net Promoter Score is 64.5% and rising.
Markit was founded in Estonia in 2003.
www.markit.eu