News - Par Mathéo Pauchet, le 20 Mar 2025

Our Green IT Commitments

Softcorner, a company committed to Green IT

The reuse of “on premise” licenses is a Green IT lever. Even though Softcorner's initial observation was the waste caused by the huge volume of Shelfware in companies, buying or selling unused licenses today is a rational and clever act that more broadly fits into the movement of reuse and digital sobriety.

Beyond the financial gain that second-hand licenses allow, their reuse is a means of extending the usage cycle of software and thus the lifecycle of hardware, fighting against software obsolescence. But it is also a mark of sobriety for the seller who will keep in their software assets only what is truly useful for the organization’s operation.

The second-hand license against software obsolescence

Software is increasingly resource-hungry, even professional office tools demand more power, sometimes forcing a hasty renewal of equipment. Thus, according to the site greenit.fr, the Office 2019 suite requires 171 times more RAM than the 97 version while the key functionalities remain the same*.

Staying on an older version will therefore not only save on license purchases; but it will also extend the lifespan of workstations, thereby generating additional savings while making your IT system more sober by avoiding the purchase of new equipment whose production generates a significant environmental impact.

Digital sobriety and Green IT go hand in hand

Sure, buying or selling a software license on the secondary market will not turn your information system into a digital sobriety champion overnight. But the alternative offered by second-hand perpetual licenses opens up an interesting field of reflection around digital sobriety.

The transition to all-cloud leads to an explosion of sometimes poorly controlled expenses. This raises questions about the justification of a new investment and its utility in light of its financial cost and existing tools.

It also allows questioning the increase in energy expenditure, not very visible but very real, that the transition to the cloud of a number of applications induces.

As the digital ecological impact is increasingly scrutinized and many organizations question their Social and Environmental Responsibility (CSR), the secondary market for software licenses is a lever that can be directly activated in CIOs to optimize assets, expenses, and the impact on the planet by limiting reliance on the cloud when it is not useful or by extending the life of their equipment.

*Source: https://www.greenit.fr/2020/08/18/x171-la-croissance-du-poids-de-nos-logiciels/

Softcorner’s commitments

Free ICT Europe

As part of our CSR approach, Softcorner has taken an active role within the Free ICT Europe (FIE) foundation. FIE is a non-profit foundation that actively promotes the secondary ICT market in Europe. Our goal is to ensure ownership rights and the freedom of consumers and businesses to freely choose their vendors for sales, maintenance, and repair. The foundation represents the interests of all operators in this market, including third-party maintainers, out-of-warranty repairers, ICT refurbishers, ICT brokers, spare parts suppliers, independent integrators, software support organizations, used software resellers, and leasing companies.

Planet Tech’Care

Softcorner is a signatory of the Planet Tech’Care manifesto for responsible digital technology. Planet Tech’Care is the first initiative bringing together a network of partners (professional organizations, schools, competitiveness clusters, associations, foundations, think tanks), aiming to support companies in integrating digital technology into their environmental trajectory and to support training actors in developing skills in responsible digital technology. By committing around a manifesto, signatories have free access to a support program composed of several events (including conferences and webinars) designed by digital and environmental experts, partners of the initiative.

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