Circular Economy

We will improve our use of resources and create circular business models

Our relationship with tech needs to change and as the #1 tech retailer in all the markets we operate in, we’re uniquely placed to lead the way in changing this relationship. We believe there’s a far better way – better for customers, better for us, better for communities and better for the planet. And that better way is to give technology a longer life.

We all love new technology and want to feel good about buying a new piece of kit. But we also know that electronic waste is the world’s fastest growing waste stream and is expected to grow to nearly 82 million tonnes by 2030. We have to face facts: we can’t keep throwing stuff away.

At Currys, we don’t just sell amazing technology; we save it too. It’s not just better for the planet, it’s also great for your pocket. For example, our UK & Ireland ‘Cash for Trash’ campaign encourages Brits to give Currys their unwanted tech in return for a £5 voucher.

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Buy

When you buy amazing technology

• We know our customers want to reduce their impact on the environment, and it’s our job to make that easier.
• From energy efficient ovens to water efficient dishwashers, we’re making it easier for our customers to make choices, through tools that enable transparency and comparability between products.
• Currys and Elkjøp continue to sell refurbished tech through their online platforms.
• In the UK, Currys has built on a successful website trial last year and sold over 15,000 refurbished tech items in 2023/24, with mobiles, laptops and Chromebooks driving the most volume.
• In the Nordics, Elkjøp Norway even sell refurbished white goods through their online platform in partnership with Norsk Ombruk. These are products Norsk Ombruk collect at Elkjøp stores, refurbish and prepare for a second life. And this year, Elkjøp Nordic launched NewStart in all markets – our refurbished smartphones proposition where products are sold with the same warranties as new products.

Repair

When you need help to repair it

• We help our customers protect their amazing technology from day one, with our range of care services and tech insurance plans.
• 12 million of our customers enjoy this extra peace of mind by ensuring their new technology has the longest life possible.
• One of the principal ways we extend the life of technology is by repairing it. Last year, we made 1.4 million repairs across the Currys Group.
• We have over 1,400 skilled technicians working across the Group, 1,000 of whom work in Europe’s largest tech repair lab, our Customer Repair Centre in Newark, along with 217 dedicated field engineers carrying out repairs in customer homes.
• This year we’ve assessed over 590,000 products for customer repairs in Newark and we facilitated over 270,000 customer in home repairs.
• Elkjøp also have repair centres, Elcare, that employ 220 skilled repairers in Norway, Sweden and Finland, with service advisors in all stores.
• We always explore how we can minimise the environmental impact of our repair operations too. In the UK & Ireland we have repaired rather than replaced over 13,000 component parts, making a big difference on large screen TVs and computing. This reduces the requirement for new parts (and e-waste), whilst saving over £1.4m in the process.
• We have also continued our parts harvesting programme, taking useful parts for reuse from products that are no longer fully functional or economical to repair.
• Our repair experts even help customers in the UK & Ireland virtually. Through RepairLive – an on demand service, available via video call for laptops and TVs – we can identify the cause of a fault, undertake DIY fixes and assist with arranging a repair through over a free video call.
• RepairLive is growing. In the last financial year it undertook over 12,000 customer calls with 43% of customer issues being resolved during the call, avoiding the need for a return – a great win for customer convenience that also reduces the costs and environmental impact of logistics.

Trade-in

When you’re ready for something new

• Trade-in is the bridge between old and new tech.
• When you want to upgrade, we offer to pay our customers the trade-in value of their unwanted tech. The, we’ll give that unwanted device a longer life by providing it to somebody else – either by refurbishing and re-selling the tech, or by donating it to those who need it most.
• In the UK & Ireland, we support most of our existing categories with a trade-in proposition. In the last financial year, 65k products were traded in, with an average value of £145 being given to customers.
• Where we can, we repair and refurbish products to support local causes and low-income families.
• This helped 9,284 households save £1.74m in 2023/24. We also work with the UK’s largest independent recycler of e-waste and provider of re-use Enva Recycling, who provide refurbished white goods from Currys e-waste to major UK charities with over 6,000 refurbished white goods sold last year.
• We also provided refurbished items to specific causes, including those in need via our Tech4Families programme with the Digital Poverty Alliance.

End of life

When it’s reached the end of life

• We encourage everyone to bring their unwanted tech into our stores to be reused or recycled for free – whether they bought it from us or not. Customers can also use Currys to remove and recycle their larger domestic electricals when they have a new item delivered.
• If we can’t reuse the tech we collect, then we can harvest the parts which can be put to good use by our amazing repair colleagues in our repair labs. Or we can recycle it.
• In 2023/24 8.1 million pieces of e-waste were collected for reuse and recycling across our Group, equivalent to 87,000 tonnes.
• We’re proud of our achievements but we know there is more to do. In the Global E-Waste Monitor report 2024, it states that the UK is one of the world’s largest producers of e-waste, with 24.5kg generated on average, per person. And in the Nordics, Norway generated 26.8kg and Sweden 21kg e-waste on average per person.
• Research undertaken by Currys this year found that over a third of people put off recycling e-waste due to a lack of information, and three-in-four people hoard unwanted tech in their homes, despite having no use for it.
• To help address this, we continue to offer and promote our Cash for Trash initiative, which enables customers in the UK to get £5 off future purchases when they recycle with us in-store.
• We’ve even launched our very own ‘Trash Tycoon’ gaming experience, within the video game Fortnite to promote environmental responsibility to younger generations.
• Cash for Trash was shortlisted in the Business Green Awards for Recycling Project of the Year.
• We’ve also been working to incentivise recycling in the Nordics too. In Norway we have introduced a deposit scheme on e-waste, creating a small fiscal incentive to bring back old tech.

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As the leading technology retailer in all our markets, with the ability to serve customers in-store and online, we are in a prime position to make a difference and help our customers extend the life of their tech. So, here’s how we’re doing it at every stage of the product’s life.

Collaborating with others

Giving technology longer life shows how purpose and profit can – and must – go hand in hand. We’re doing the right thing and making a profit – and that means we’re in it for the long-run. We’re leading the way in changing everyone’s relationship with tech for the better.

We are helping to accelerate industry change by working with others. We have continued our membership of the Circular Electronics Partnership (‘CEP’) which brings together experts, business leaders and global organisations to set a vision and roadmap to a circular economy for electronics by 2030. We’ve contributed to the roadmap review and action plans, and have supported their project to create a circular electronics guide.

Product packaging

We’re prioritising a number of ways to help reduce, recycle and reuse plastics and packaging. We have achieved our aim to make all our own label and licensed brand packaging reusable or recyclable. At the end of 2023/24, 99.95% was recyclable, with 85% recyclable at kerbside based on UK infrastructure. 88% of the remaining 15% of plastic that cannot be recycled at kerbside is expanded polystyrene (‘EPS’).

In the UK & Ireland, we provide an in-store takeback scheme for TV packaging, including EPS, and we offer our customers a free packaging recycling service when we deliver and unbox large household appliances. We also offer packaging recycling services in the Nordics.

We proactively work with suppliers of own label and licensed brand products to reduce packaging. In 2023/24 we continued our collaborative work to remove plastic packaging and have removed EPS altogether where possible, such as in some of our microwave ovens, saving over 41 tonnes.

We remain committed to finding solutions that reduce environmental impact whilst also protecting the product from damage by conducting trials to understand the lifecycle impacts of packaging changes.

We continue to work with our suppliers to look to make further improvements and investigate ways to get used packaging and other raw materials back to suppliers for circular production.