Global ITAD Alliance Nears One-Year Mark With Push Beyond Industry Walls

The Global ITAD Alliance is approaching its one-year anniversary with a stated mission that its executive director, Darrell Fleming-Kendall, frames in plain terms: every person who has made an electronic transaction is protected at some point by an ITAD provider, and almost none of them know the industry exists.

Fleming-Kendall laid out the organization's agenda in an interview with Uriah Kiser on the Resource Recycling Podcast, recorded on the floor of E-Scrap: The Longevity Conference in New Orleans. It was, by his count, his 12th or 13th E-Scrap event.

What problem is the Alliance trying to solve?

The group grew out of the ITAD Summit conference network, which also runs ITAD Europe and Mobile Disrupt. Fleming-Kendall said the summits deliver 26 sessions per event, with a comparable number at E-Scrap. The problem, as he sees it, is that conferences are the industry talking to itself.

"Our goal with the Global ITAD Alliance is really to elevate awareness of the ITAD industry," he said. The group wants the public and legislators to understand what happens to devices at the end of life at banks, hospitals and schools — and to change the vocabulary so the message resonates.

The last ITAD Summit drew 2,200 attendees and 146 exhibit-hall vendors at the Bellagio in Las Vegas. Fleming-Kendall called it the de facto annual meeting of the industry and credited that community, built on trust in the Summit as a carrier of information, as the primary driver of the Alliance's first-year growth.

How did the industry cross its line of demarcation?

Fleming-Kendall dated the industry's pivot roughly five or six years ago. ITAD operators moved from being recyclers in the traditional sense — collecting, sorting, dismantling, sending metals to one buyer and plastics to another — to a service-first industry.

The pitch changed from "let me take care of that scrap or waste for you" to "let me protect your brand, let me handle your data," he said. Certification programs such as e-Stewards and R2 influenced that shift, in his account.

The Alliance's leadership roster reflects its collaboration-over-competition posture. Fleming-Kendall named John Shegerian and Kevin Dillon of ERI, Todd Zegers of CXtec, Gary Diamond of Quantum, Eric Levine of Iron Mountain and Kelly Hess of CompuCycle. The industry is in a boom, he argued, and operators do not need to cannibalize each other's share when the pie itself is growing.

What is the policy play?

The organization operates globally. It has a sub-chapter in Europe and is developing sub-chapters for Australia and for Southeast and South Asia, including India, to handle regional issues as they arise.

In Washington, Fleming-Kendall pointed to three drivers for the next decade: economics, material sustainability and, because of critical minerals, national security. He criticized manufacturers for claiming credit for circular-economy progress while forgetting, in his words, that "the circle part of it comes courtesy of ITADs and secondary lifecycle management companies."

Legislators and regulators, he said, are largely looking to get educated and often approve rules without understanding the secondary effects. Kiser noted there is no federal policy on electronics in the U.S., only a state patchwork.

Three weeks before the conference, Fleming-Kendall attended an AI conference in a congressional office building — the one week Congress was in session. Twelve or 15 representatives or senators spoke with his group of three, who were the only attendees representing the reverse side of the equipment lifecycle. He walked away and posted on LinkedIn: "Yo, as an industry, we have a lot of work to do." He described a complete void in understanding about what happens to data center equipment when it reaches end of life.

Where does the outreach go next?

The Alliance publishes a monthly public newsletter at globalitad.org, with member updates and an executive director's message. A recent edition on national security — reconciling economic interests against security interests — drew significant response, Fleming-Kendall said, because the balance between the two has drawn little industry conversation.

The organization's near-term milestone is its one-year anniversary, and its measurable test will be whether the sub-chapter build-out in Australia and South Asia, and the education campaign on Capitol Hill, convert awareness into informed policy on data center end-of-life management.