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40 I-CONNECT007 MAGAZINE I SEPTEMBER 2026 can the original owner verify those outcomes? That distinction between recycling as an inten- tion and recycling as a verifiable outcome is really where Xscindo came from. What did you learn in your market research? One of the biggest things we discovered was that visibility often diminishes very quickly once a device leaves the original owner's control. An organization may quite legitimately say, "We send our electronics for recycling," but when you ask what happens two, three, or four steps downstream, the answer often becomes much less clear. A device may pass through a data-destruction company, processor, broker, refiner, or other inter- mediary. The original owner can therefore find it extremely difficult to establish the final destination of every component. That led us to ask organizations what they would change about the existing system if they could. How did companies respond? When we spoke to organizations about what they would change if they could, four themes came up consistently. The first was data security: How can I verify that the data has actually been destroyed? The second was the environmental impact of the non-metal components, particularly plas- tics and forever chemicals. The third was metals: Where do they ultimately go, and can we demon- strate that they have genuinely been returned to the circular economy? The fourth really encompassed all three: trans- parency. Organizations wanted a better chain of custody and greater visibility into what actually happened to their equipment after it left their possession. That is a big leap of faith to send out your e- waste and believe it's being disposed of properly. The lack of transparency around the current sys- tem is disturbing. That's really the issue: trust without verification. Or- ganizations aren't only responsible for their own sensitive information; in many cases, they're en- trusted with customer, employee, and client data as well. In the U.S. in 2025, 3,300 data compromises were reported; many more likely went unreported. Many large organizations are regularly being fined for data breaches, so data protection is a key con- cern for most, if not all, organizations. Once a device leaves their control, they need confidence not only that the data has been irrevers- ibly destroyed, but also that the device itself has been handled as they were told it would be. That's why I think transparency and verifiable outcomes are becoming increasingly important. It's no longer enough to say something was recycled; organi- zations increasingly want to know what actually happened to it. After years of education on recycling in the U.S., we now have the realization that much of it has ended up in landfills, particularly overseas or in the ocean. Recently, the U.S. seem to have halted some its environmentally proactive measures. That is not the case in Europe. What's happening there? Europe and the UK have generally moved further toward requiring organizations to understand and report the environmental impact of their activities and supply chains, but the U.S. is moving in that di- rection as well. California's SB 253, for example, is part of a broader movement toward greater emissions and supply-chain accountability. This requires compa- nies with over $1 billion in annual revenue to provide Scope 1 (emissions caused by the company directly), Scope 2 (additional emissions associated with purchased energy) carbon footprint reporting this year, and Scope 3 (indirect carbon emissions through a company's value chain) reporting in 2027. What I find particularly relevant is the increasing focus on Scope 3, the indirect impact occurring throughout an organization's value chain. That changes the question from "Did we send it for recycling?" to "Can we demonstrate what actually happened to it?" That's an important distinction. Whenever we create targets, there is a risk of focusing so heavily on the measurement that we lose sight of the outcome we're actually trying to achieve. History is full of examples of well-intentioned policies producing unintended consequences. A relevant