Building a city-wide digital reuse system for people, place and planet
Executive summary
Digital inclusion is often treated as a short-term, standalone intervention. Electronic waste is treated as an environmental problem. Coventry is showing they are, in fact, part of the same system and that the system can be joined up to benefit the city, and its residents, as a whole.
In September 2025, Coventry City Council and Virgin Media O2 strengthened their partnership to scale this approach, working towards a circular model where unwanted devices (such as laptops, phones and tablets) are reused locally to enable Coventry residents to get online, while reducing environmental impact. Devices are embedded into health, education and community settings, ensuring they reach the people who need them most, alongside the support required to use it safely and effectively.
Together, this approach reflects a shared ambition to move beyond short term pilots and instead embed digital inclusion and device reuse into public services, supply chains and organisational behaviour as core city infrastructure.
In Phase 1 (our learning phase), this joined up approach delivered tangible results, with over 6,000 devices distributed through trusted networks. This demonstrated wider impact across access to services, social connection, economic participation and sustainability.
This report shows how Coventry has moved from early action, to system-level change, and how Phase 2 will test what it takes to make digital reuse "business as usual", establishing the UK's first localised, self sustaining device reuse city, with learning that can now inform national policy and practice.
Read the full report - find out how getting people online is transforming lives.