A long-running electronics reuse conference is under new ownership by a nonprofit certification organization and has a new name, reflecting a goal to focus on a broader concept of “sustainability” in device management.
Sustainable Electronics Recycling International (SERI) on Feb. 2 announced it has acquired the E-Reuse Conference (ERC), an annual repair-focused event. SERI has changed the event’s name to the Electronics Sustainability Summit.
“We are very excited to add a conference to our growing list of SERI programs, all focused on the goal of driving electronics sustainability around the world,” said Corey Dehmey, executive director of SERI, in a statement Feb. 2. SERI administers the R2 certification standard.
Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
ERC launched in 2010, evolving from a previous event called the International Computer Refurbisher Summit. In recent years, the event has co-located with the E-Scrap Conference. (Resource Recycling, Inc., publisher of E-Scrap News, puts on the E-Scrap Conference.) The conference had an early focus on repair, reuse and remarketing devices, addressing a different part of the electronics recovery business than traditional e-scrap processors performing shredding and commodity recovery.
Sarah Kim, head of E-Reuse Services, which puts on ERC, framed the acquisition as the next stage in the evolution of the reuse event.
“When I thought about the future of ERC and how it might continue to evolve, SERI felt like the perfect organization to take it to the next level,” she said in a statement. “I couldn’t be more excited to work with SERI to build the Electronics Sustainability Summit with that shared vision in mind.”
Dehmey noted SERI wants the summit to reflect a focus on sustainability throughout the entire device life cycle. He said the event provides a “platform for us to build upon to engage the entire electronics industry around the topic of sustainability.”
The first iteration of the rebranded event, the 2024 Electronics Sustainability Summit, will be held Oct. 22-24 in Austin, Texas.
