For South African enterprises, years of load shedding have made energy instability a defining factor in how sustainability goals are set and pursued.
By Apu Pavithran, CEO and founder of Hexnode
That very instability has also left businesses struggling to keep their digital operations running. And the situation has shown little sign of easing so far, as Eskom has recently reinstated 14-hour nationwide blackouts yet again, part of a series of large-scale blackouts in just 2025 itself.
While grid instability captures headlines, a much-overlooked drain on power resources is happening at a micro level in the case of enterprises: the energy use and lifecycle of their IT devices.
The cumulative effect of thousands of computers and networked machines operating without oversight adds up to a meaningful share of corporate energy demand. This impact can often go unnoticed in daily operations, yet its contribution to both power instability and operational cost is nothing to write off.
This area of oversight for IT assets is becoming increasingly untenable, given South Africa’s rising Carbon Tax and a new wave of environmental regulations coming into effect. Managing these digital assets now sits firmly at the intersection of sustainability, compliance, and business resilience.
How Devices Strain an Already Overloaded Grid
The energy footprint tied to enterprise IT devices represents a larger share of consumption than is typically recognized in daily operations. Across typical commercial buildings, nearly a quarter of total energy consumption can be attributed directly to computers and other connected devices. Yet this usage has been largely treated as a fixed, unavoidable “cost of doing business”; an operational line item rather than a variable to be actively managed.
In the South African context, however, this kind of unmanaged consumption places a disproportionate toll on an already struggling national grid. It inevitably raises exposure under the Carbon Tax Act, and the newer Electricity Regulation Amendment Act reinforces this stance by explicitly penalizing excessive energy consumption.
To understand the scale, consider the ripple effect of a single device. A standard desktop computer left running throughout the day, including an evening of idle time, can easily drain around 150 kWh of electricity annually. This figure may seem trivial on its own, but when multiplied across an entire organization with hundreds or thousands of endpoints, this “phantom drain” aggregates into a significant operational cost.
This collective inaction is paving the way for exacerbated load-shedding impacts. Without actively managing device power usage, companies are not just victims of the grid’s instability; they are in line to face a rough and increasingly expensive reality as contributors to it.
Every unmanaged endpoint left drawing unnecessary power becomes a silent accomplice in straining the national infrastructure, a strategic failure that impacts both the public good and the company’s bottom line.
Why New Regulations are Central to Sustainability
The strain on the grid, however, represents only one part of the enterprise device’s environmental footprint. While energy consumption addresses the day-to-day operational cost, an equally potent challenge lies in the emerging sustainability compliance governing the device’s entire lifecycle.
Leading this wave, South Africa’s Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) Regulations have fundamentally reshaped the landscape of IT hardware management. They now make companies legally accountable for each stage of a device’s use, from procurement to retirement.
This shift comes against the backdrop of over 500 000 tonnes of e-waste that’s being generated annually in South Africa. The EPR framework places direct legal and financial responsibility for this waste stream onto large-scale users. From an enterprise perspective, how long a device remains usable and efficient has become a defining factor in meeting sustainability goals.
Adding onto this increasingly complex sustainability compliance maze, ESG reporting has shifted from being an optional “nice-to-have” for JSE-listed companies to a mandatory requirement. This mandate has thrust previously overlooked operational areas, like IT asset management, directly into the spotlight. How a company manages its technology is now a significant source of data for investors and a reflection of its broader governance maturity.
As such, environmental and device-handling obligations more or less fall into the same intersection. When the process of managing device lifecycle breaks down, even a single device retired without proper data-handling procedures or compliance with POPIA and GDPR can hinder sustainability progress. Such oversights can inflict lasting damage on a company’s crucial ESG standing and slowly diminish the reputation it has built.
What Defines a Truly Sustainable Device Lifecycle
Meeting the multifaceted challenges across energy waste, e-waste, and compliance risk starts with a proactive device lifecycle strategy. This requires a holistic framework that manages endpoints from the point of procurement through to their secure and compliant retirement.
Modern approaches like Device-as-a-Service (DaaS) are gaining significant traction because they embed sustainability directly into the procurement process. By bundling hardware, software, and comprehensive end-of-life services into a streamlined contract, DaaS models can simplify the procurement and disposal phases. However, this still leaves the “in-life” management of the device as a major variable.
Managing this entire lifecycle effectively, especially during the active-use phase, requires centralised control. A Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) platform is typically the central system for managing this phase, providing essential visibility and automation to enforce management policies across the entire fleet. With it, organisations can enforce smart power policies at scale by automating sleep timers so that a device only consumes energy when it genuinely needs to.
Beyond power optimisation, system and application updates play a pivotal role in extending the usable life of enterprise devices. Regular, automated updates coordinated at a large scale through UEM help maintain performance, security, and compliance, ultimately reducing the frequency of hardware refreshes.
And when a device eventually reaches its end-of-life, it’s not enough to just ‘shut down’ and send it away. Each and every unit must be handled with care, especially when it comes to the sensitive data it holds. The same centralized management framework can ensure that all corporate data is remotely and securely wiped before disposal. This is a non-negotiable step for ensuring POPIA compliance before the device is sent for refurbishment or recycling under the strict EPR guidelines.
Ultimately, proper IT governance is not a separate concern when accounting for environmental stewardship. Alignment of day-to-day IT operations with high-level corporate objectives demonstrates that responsible consumption and rigorous compliance can, and must, go hand in hand.