Beyond Averages: Why Leading ITADs Choose Bloom ESG for Avoided Emissions Accuracy That’s 4.5x Higher Than EPA WARM
London, UK – July 17, 2025 – For IT asset disposition (ITAD) providers, ESG reporting is no longer a “nice to have”—it is a business requirement – enabling those companies with robust reporting to gain a competitive advantage in a crowded sector. Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) and enterprise companies are under mounting pressure to quantify the environmental impact of technology footprints and ensure that their disposal is managed in an environmentally sustainable way. Effective IT asset disposition requires engaging with supply chain partners who are able to demonstrate that they prioritise re-use over recycling and are effective at putting technology back into the economy – achieving the highest level of economic circularity. In order for ITADs and recyclers to demonstrate the impact they can achieve they must now track, calculate and share impact data that is client-specific, auditable, and trustworthy. However, until recently the only frameworks that were available offered generic impact values and lacked credible methodologies to explain how the values were determined. Without scientifically valid results OEMs and enterprise companies lacked the data they needed to make critical procurement decisions.
Jim Puckett, founder of the Basel Action Network, and administrator of e-Stewards stated: "We urge ITADs on the cutting edge of recording and reporting avoided greenhouse gas emissions, to give the Bloom/e-Stewards calculator a try. Our calculator is based on your own facility’s unique inputs and operations rather than assumed averages and thus reflects far greater accuracy in your corporate footprint and actually translates into far greater revealed benefits."
Legacy Impact Tools
The widely used publicly available tool that calculates avoided emissions for the e-waste sector is the US EPA’s WARM model. However, it has several drawbacks. It relies on industry averages, uses outdated emissions factors, is not specific to a processor and only covers a limited number of IT asset types. Hence, the impact reporting achieved is of limited value and lacks actionable insights.
To meet demanding customer requirements ITADs and recyclers require solutions that are robust and bespoke to their processes, but they often lack the resources to build a tailor-made solution in-house leaving the WARM model to be adopted by many in the industry. An alternative approach is a tool that enables ITADs and recyclers to measure avoided emissions unique to their own processes. In this way each calculation is unique to the asset, processor or recycler – meaning no two calculations will be the same. ITAD A will yield different avoided emissions than ITAD B because the energy and resources of the two are not the same. Not only that, but underlying assumptions that use outdated data are often under-reporting environmental benefits as electronics model types can vary in their emissions savings. These type of nuances are critical in the sector, making tools that rely on industry averages alone -- simply outdated.
The Bloom/e-Stewards avoided emissions calculator captures this nuance. Compared to the U.S. EPA’s WARM model, Bloom’s platform delivers avoided emissions results that are verifiable and specific to the IT assets being processed. Bloom has been able to demonstrate that verified impact results are up to 452% higher than comparable EPA WARM results, thanks to manufacturer-specific data that reflects today’s real tech manufacturing footprint. For ITADs still relying on outdated or generic calculators, that’s a serious blind spot—and a missed opportunity.
Bloom/e-Stewards vs. WARM: Why the Gap Matters
While both the Bloom ESG/e-Stewards and the EPA’s WARM model aim to quantify avoided emissions from recycling or reusing electronics, the two tools operate on fundamentally different assumptions.
The commercial significance of precise emissions reporting cannot be overstated—especially as original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) intensify their focus on Scope 3 emissions and circular economy partnerships.
"The Bloom/e-Stewards avoided emissions calculator is able to deliver emissions reduction calculations that are up to 4.5 times more accurate for identical asset categories," says Amanda Bond, Founding Partner of Bloom ESG.
“Our heightened level of precision not only strengthens the credibility of reported sustainability outcomes, but also gives ITADs and their clients a robust, data-driven foundation for decision-making and compliance,” say Sebastian Foot, Founding Partner of Bloom ESG.
As OEMs increasingly prioritize partners who can demonstrate rigorous, transparent, and independently verified environmental impact, such advancements in measurement set a new benchmark for trust and accountability in the circular economy sector.
Bloom’s Numbers Are Higher—and More Honest
Higher results are not a coincidence, they are driven by Bloom leveraging primary data in the underlying assumptions. Three areas highlight the benefits of moving away from the EPA WARM:
1. Real-World Emissions, Not Outdated Averages
Modern tech manufacturing has evolved dramatically. Devices today use more rare earth metals, travel through more complex supply chains, and are replaced faster than ever. WARM’s generalized factors don’t capture this complexity—Bloom’s does.
2. Data that Tracks the 24x Growth in Tech Scope 3 Emissions
Since 2018, the tech sector’s Scope 3 emissions have exploded, largely due to high-intensity manufacturing and upstream supplier impact. Bloom’s methodology reflects this reality using current OEM emissions disclosures and lifecycle models.
3. Audit-Ready, Buyer-Ready
OEMs increasingly require emissions reports that meet Scope 4 reporting standards, tie into ERP systems, and support asset-level traceability. Only the Bloom/e-Steward’s calculator delivers:
For ITADs: It’s Time to Step Up
For IT asset disposition (ITAD) providers seeking to win or retain enterprise clients, avoided emissions reporting is a critical, client-facing asset. Today’s OEMs and enterprise partners are increasingly discerning, and able to distinguish between generic emissions estimates and those substantiated by real, traceable supply chain data. OEM’s need a solution that enables them to accurately communicate their sustainability story and are looking to ITADs to help them achieve this.
The circular economy can no longer rely on outdated tools to measure environmental benefits. To meet client expectations and align with evolving regulatory and stakeholder expectations - they must adopt an industry leading solution that delivers the credibility and precision required by today’s ITADs and their enterprise clients.
About Bloom ESG Bloom ESG is a UK-based SaaS platform helping ITADs, OEMs, and e-waste processors quantify and communicate the environmental benefits of circular practices. Bloom’s carbon inset registry and impact calculator are trusted across the industry and verified against global standards.
About e-Stewards The e-Stewards® Initiative is a market-based solution to help individuals and organizations identify and promote electronics recyclers who ensure that used electronics are managed with the highest environmental and social responsibility standards. e-Stewards Certified Recyclers and Refurbishers are audited and certified to ensure the highest levels of responsibility. e-Stewards Enterprises are major corporations, municipalities, nonprofits, or institutions that agree to make their best efforts to use e-Stewards Certified Recyclers. e-Stewards is a program established by the environmental advocacy organization Basel Action Network. See e-Stewards Video.