Mission

Understand our approach and what drives us.

We work to create a well‑informed, circular electronics economy where e‑waste is treated as a valuable resource, products are durable and repairable, and recovered materials power a just transition to low‑carbon technologies while protecting people and ecosystems.

Communication and education for circularity.

As a not-for-profit initiative, our goal is to support the growth of the circular economy for electronics and renewable energy technologies. You can see us as an amplifier or cheerleader of sorts, as we work to enable a higher yield from the resources and assets being deployed into the relevant value chains.

In practice, a large part of our work revolves around bringing together public information and resources, speaking to and connecting different stakeholders, making topics around e-waste and its whole value chain more accessible and easier to understand, and creating tools and resources that make collaboration and action around electronics circularity easier.

SYSTEMS CHANGE THROUGH EDUCATTION

What makes us us at The E-Waste Column?

1

We connect the dots.

At The E-Waste Column, we work to show the "bigger picture" and the larger societal relevance of raw materials, electronics circularity, e-waste, and renewable energy technologies.

We want people to understand the social and environmental impacts of electronic devices throughout their whole lifecycle (not just for one phase or step along the way) and their entire global supply chains (not just at one facility or location).

Our work strives to highlight why raw materials, electronics circularity, e-waste, and renewable energy technologies matter for our societies and democracies – now and in the future. We want everyone to be able to understand why these topics matter to them personally and how they can get engaged in shaping what happens next.

2

We care about the planet and its people.

There is a planetary and human impact to raw materials, electronics, and e-waste. While the environmental and ecological impacts get a somewhat fair amount of attention in the media and research, the same cannot be said for the social, human rights, labour, gender, and conflict dimensions of raw materials, electronics, and e-waste.

The social and human aspects of raw materials, electronics circularity, e-waste, and renewable energy technologies are often just overlooked or ignored. At The E-Waste Column, we make a point of covering health and safety risks, forced and child labour, Indigenous rights, gender inequality, conflict minerals, as well as other social and human rights issues that arise in global supply chains. We also strive to give insights into consumer behavior and involvement throughout electronics lifecycles.

We know that both the planet and its people matter when it comes to shaping and protecting our futures. We therefore cover both aspects – and strive to tell the human side of the story whenever possible.

3

We push for inclusion and equity.

Innovation can be found everywhere, and it can come from anyone. Innovators do not have a fixed age, gender, heritage, religion, or socio-economic background. This is also why broadscale education and inclusion makes sense when it comes to raw materials, electronics circularity, e-waste, and renewable energy technologies.

At The E-Waste Column, we want to allow different people to think along and come up with the potential solutions to some of greatest questions of our time. We know from personal experience that good ideas are not always heard, because there is not equal room or space created for innovators from all walks of life to bring their good ideas to the table. That is something we are not willing to just accept, so we are actively working to democratize the space.

We want women, minority groups, and anyone with a good idea to be heard and have a say – because frankly the future is far too important to be determined by merely a small group of people.

4

We foster innovation through interdisciplinarity and cross-pollination.

How we move over to having a circular economy and how we create a just energy transition are both complex questions – and complex questions can rarely ever be answered well in a one-dimensional way.

How metals, minerals, and critical raw materials for electronics and renewable energy technologies are sourced comes with a myriad of social, environmental, technical, geopolitical, and economical questions. The same holds true for how electronics and renewable energy technologies are designed, produced, used, repaired, disposed of, and recycled.

At The E-Waste Column, we believe that only an interdisciplinary approach can lead to a true understanding of the issues at hand and the potential solutions. Our work aims to help different stakeholders innovate and find real-life solutions through education, connection, collaboration, and ultimately through so-called "cross-pollination".

A Look Behind Our Work

“Why do you care so much?” That is a question I have gotten to hear a lot over the past few years at The E-Waste Column. It is honestly not the easiest question to answer, because there are so many layers to why I care about circularity and hence there would also be so many different answers I could give in response. That said, the final story from my series on “100 People & Organizations in Circularity to Follow in 2025” perhaps comes the closest to giving a good answer:

“My grandfather, Oiva Nikander was born in Finland, drafted into the Continuation War when he was 18, and never got the chance to attend university. Returning to his village as one of just three men from his generation to survive WW2, Oiva decided to dedicate his career to building a just, sustainable, and peaceful future. When Sitra was founded in 1967, he joined the innovation fund to conduct research into the electrification of mobility – work that he considered essential to safeguard the independence and future development of Finland as a democracy. Oiva was always repairing and mending things, and he believed that together ordinary people could do remarkable things. For him, circularity was strongly interconnected with peace, democracy, and the rule of law. He also believed that education, innovation, and community building were key for circular and sustainable development.”

My views and approach to circularity have been shaped by my grandfather’s story and work in countless ways, and I see the educational work that I do as a logical continuation to my family’s work around sustainability and circularity over the past two generations. Yet, my work is not about legacy or legacy building for me, but about a deep-rooted sense of responsibility to our democracies, our freedom, our future, and the generations that come after us – and I think those are things that are very much worth caring about and fighting for.

— Christine Nikander, Founder of The E-Waste Column

Christine & grandfather in Summer 1999.jpg

We are lean by nature and focus our efforts specifically on what really needs fixing.

Over the past decade, we have seen the same key issues create considerable risks and reoccurring problems within raw material, electronics, and e-waste value chains. We started The E-Waste Column in 2022 specifically to tackle these issues and try to fix what has been broken for too long.

Through our lean and targeted work, we focus on the following five systematic issues:

The fallacy of treating of raw materials sourcing, e-waste management, and the infrastructure needs for renewable energy technologies as distinct issues rather than as interconnected matters
The lack of consideration and the absence of research around the social dimensions of the value chain
- The human rights, labor, and gender issues throughout the value chain
- Legal, policy, and governance aspects of the value chain
- Psychology and behavior change around electronics consumption and e-waste
The scarcity of high-quality and easily accessible education
- For citizens to understand e-waste and what to do with it
- For businesses to understand the broader value chain they are operating in
- For policymakers to understand the real issues on the ground and how to fix these
- For women and minorities to enter the sector without gatekeeping
The shortage of collaboration between stakeholders, and the resulting siloing of information and know-how
The absence of recognizing citizens as a stakeholder, and the consequent deficiency of citizens engagement

By tailoring our work to targeting these five core issues, we believe that we can effectively increase the positive impact or "social return" for both large- and small-scale investments being made into raw material and electronics circularity. Our goal with this is to act as a "circular transition broker" and help catalyze change throughout the entirety of the value chains.

OUR ROLE IN BROKERING THE TRANSITION