Powering a sustainable future with ChromeOS
Ashwini Varma
Senior Director, Engineering, ChromeOS
In a world of rapid change and pressing environmental challenges, action is needed now more than ever. With 96% of people across the globe wanting sustainability to be a part of their lives,1 businesses need to take action. Last year, I shared ways we can make a change by reducing the amount of e-waste we produce and this year I’d like to expand beyond e-waste to talk about how sustainability is driving change across the globe.
Driving digital sustainability for people, planet, and profitability
Sustainability must play a part in all of our lives, and ChromeOS and ChromeOS Flex can help all types of businesses embrace circularity and get more mileage out of their existing device fleet.
We’ve extended support on ChromeOS devices from eight years to now providing 10 years of automatic updates — longer than any other operating system today — underscoring a commitment to promoting both device longevity and sustainability. This extended support enhances device lifespan, reduces the frequency of hardware replacements and minimizes e-waste generation. And while using your ChromeOS devices for even longer than before, you can rest assured that they’re designed with energy-efficiency in mind, consuming up to 46% less energy than comparable operating systems.2 You may have also read in our blog post earlier this year, “11 Ways You Win with ChromeOS Flex,” that devices running ChromeOS Flex consume 19% less energy on average than other comparable operating systems.2 Even more, within the first year of deploying ChromeOS Flex on your devices, your business can realize emissions reductions of up to 83% and e-waste reductions of 100%.3
By weight, laptops and similar devices account for more than 10% of global e-waste and currently, only 22.3% of it is properly recycled.4 With ChromeOS Flex, devices that were likely to end up in a landfill now have a second chance. This is especially important as a staggering 240 million Windows devices reach end-of-support on October 14, 2025.5 Whether your device is nearing the end of it’s current support window, experiencing a security attack such as ransomware, or is otherwise compromised due to any other bug or issue, ChromeOS Flex truly breathes new life into your devices and keeps them running for longer.
Advancing the state of Life Cycle Assessments for computers towards a sustainable IT ecosystem
As sustainability becomes a top priority, reliable measurement of environmental impact is essential. Life Cycle Assessments (LCAs) are key tools for decision-making and demonstrating sustainability progress. However, inconsistent standards hinder accurate comparisons and may inadvertently prevent design innovation.
To address this, ChromeOS is collaborating with the Fraunhofer IZM, OEMs, and partners to advance and harmonize LCA practices for laptops and computers. This work was presented on June 17 of this year, at the Electronics Goes Green conference, receiving strong support from the industry.
How you can start
Whether you have the goal of simplifying and reducing IT costs, or reducing your carbon footprint, you should consider ChromeOS and ChromeOS Flex. If you have an existing device fleet that’s nearing end-of-support, now more than ever is the right time to modernize with ChromeOS Flex at no cost. We have certified over 550 devices and growing, so chances are your devices are supported! Even better, you can do this in as little as five minutes with just a USB drive.
Taking a step back to review your sustainability goals — and how your device deployment fits into them — is the first step in the right direction to achieving lower costs and sustainable change in your organization.
Ready to get started with ChromeOS Flex? Install it in as little as five minutes here. Want to learn more about how ChromeOS is helping to power a sustainable future? Read our report.
1Accenture: Our human moment: cracking the code, 2023
2 Sutton-Parker, J. (2022), ‘Quantifying greenhouse gas abatement delivered by alternative computer operating system displacement strategies’. 1877-0509. Procedia Computer Science, Volume 203, 2022, Pages 254-263. Amsterdam, the Netherlands: Science Direct, Elsevier B.V.
3 Accenture: ChromeOS & Android Enterprise Shared Value Model, 2023
