Editor’s note: Join the free Women in Circularity Roundtable Breakfast at our 2026 E-Scrap Conference, Oct. 26-28 in New Orleans. Register now!
A warm welcome back to “Women in Circularity,” where we shine a light on women moving us toward a circular economy.
This month, I was pleased to connect with a collaborative, systems-thinking circular economy leader: Yara Barkopoulos, the Global Head of Value Recovery for Google—one of the world’s largest technology companies and a recognized leader in sustainability, with ambitious goals to advance circular operations.
Through her work, Yara helps drive strategies that extend the life of technology, advance responsible IT asset disposition (ITAD) and scale reuse and recycling initiatives. Her focus on collaboration, systems thinking and innovation is helping shape a more circular future for the tech industry.
Who influenced and supported your career journey and where did your passion for circularity come from?
My commitment to circularity began at home rather than in an engineering lab or a boardroom. From a young age, my family embodied a genuine spirit of resourcefulness and stewardship, ensuring that nothing was viewed as disposable. From mending and repurposing items we already owned to repairing household appliances together and passing goods down to extended family, I learned that resources possess lasting value and that thoughtful care always outweighs convenience.
This upbringing served as my guiding principle when I entered the technology industry. Observing how the traditional “take-make-waste” approach accelerates the depletion of resources, I discovered my mission: to bridge environmental stewardship with technological advancement. Across my professional journey, guidance from mentors, leaders and colleagues has inspired me to take a systems-level perspective—demonstrating that circularity enhances business resilience and sustainability without compromising performance.
As organizations look to reduce e-waste and maximize the value of their technology assets, what role do you see device reuse and recycling playing in achieving broader sustainability goals?
Hardware reuse, responsible recycling and IT Asset Disposition (ITAD) serve as fundamental pillars of corporate sustainability. Sustainable ITAD converts standard waste management into a strategic vehicle for financial recovery, harmonizing profitability, data security, regulatory compliance and ESG objectives. Extending device lifecycles through redeployment prevents 70–80% of manufacturing carbon emissions. Additionally, a structured ITAD approach ensures critical minerals—such as rare earth magnets, copper, lithium and cobalt—remain within a closed loop rather than ending up in landfills.
To maximize both financial and environmental returns, sustainable ITAD follows a rigorous “cascade of value” hierarchy. Organizations first prioritize internal redeployment, substantially decreasing Scope 3 greenhouse gas emissions and subsequently utilize component harvesting to reclaim modular parts—including CPUs, RAM, SSDs and power units—for resale or refurbishment.
Can you share an initiative you’ve worked on that significantly advanced circularity within Google’s technology ecosystem and what made it particularly impactful?
During the decommissioning of a large volume of highly specialized hardware, we faced a challenge: the custom nature of the devices meant there was no secondary market for fully assembled units, leaving end-of-life bulk recycling as the default option.
To align with circular economy principles—where recycling is treated as a last resort—I led an initiative to transition our disposition strategy from whole-unit scraping to component-level recovery. By applying industry best practices for device teardowns and reverse logistics, our team systematically extracted high-value, standardized components from the custom builds.
We then remarketed these recovered parts, delivering financial value recovery and extending the lifespan of thousands of viable components, keeping them in active use and directly advancing resource efficiency across the tech ecosystem.
What changes are you seeing across the technology industry when it comes to scaling circular IT practices?
The IT sector is rapidly shifting away from its traditional “take-make-dispose” linear model toward a circular economy designed to keep devices and materials in active use for as long as possible. Driven by growing environmental regulatory pressure and the scarcity of critical raw materials, tech companies are increasingly adopting modular hardware designs that allow users to easily swap out, upgrade or repair individual components—like batteries, cameras or memory—rather than discarding the entire device.
This physical transformation is supported by the widespread integration of post-consumer recycled plastics and reclaimed rare earth metals into new product lines, alongside the development of sophisticated, closed-loop e-waste recovery networks built to efficiently mine old electronics for valuable resources.
What advice would you give to someone early in their career who wants to drive positive change?
Driving meaningful sustainability within an organization requires moving beyond passion and becoming fluent in the language of the business. Operational literacy is what truly provides leverage. By understanding how finance, procurement, product design and supply chain logistics function, you can frame environmental initiatives in terms of risk mitigation, operational efficiency and ROI—ensuring they actually get funded and prioritized. This business acumen allows you to focus on systems rather than just symptoms. Instead of simply reacting to end-of-life recycling needs, you can identify the root causes of waste and tackle them upstream through better product architecture, smarter supplier contracts and innovative business models.
Systemic change in large organizations requires cross-functional coalition building, it is essential to embrace incremental wins while holding onto your long-term vision. Transformation takes patience, but at an enterprise scale, small percentages translate into massive real-world impact. Every redesigned component, updated contract or optimized workflow is a victory worth celebrating as you continuously steer the business toward a more sustainable future.
