Knows Green

I was recently the co-teacher at the EPEAT first certificate course – you can read the story here.

The class was taught by myself, Wayne Rifer and Erin Gately, both of GEC. We had several current QV’s and PVC members as well as new QV’s there for training and a few industry folks as well. As this was the first class, it was a great learning experience for all involved – the teachers and the students – and more classes will be forthcoming in the future.

First EPEAT Certificate Class, Portland, April 2010

Wayne Rifer at QV Training Class

EPEAT EPEAT, QV, Training Class

IEEE has approved the revision of the original EPEAT standard – IEEE 1680-2006.  See the announcement here.

What this does is create a 1680 “Umbrella” standard (IEEE 1680) that contains the general procedures of environmental assessment of electronic products as well as allows for the creation of IEEE 1680.X environmental criteria standards for various products.  The first of those is the 1680.1 standard (IEEE 1680.1 – Standard for Environmental Assessment of Personal Computer Products, Including Notebook Personal Computers, Desktop Personal Computers, and Personal Computer Displays).  This standard contains the 51 environmental criteria that apply to a specific set of electronic products – personal computers (notebooks, desktops) and computer displays that were in the original IEEE 1680:2006 standard that has been operation since July 2006.  The 1680.1 standard does contain the “revisions and interpretation clarifications” that were considered to be non-substantial changes such as establishing thresholds for minimum packaging sizes in addition to grammatical and formatting fixes.

Uncategorized

Recently wrote an article with Anne Peters of Gracestone Inc. on EPEAT and E-Scrap for the recent E-scrap conference – “Setting the Standard: An EPEAT Progress Report.”   I now have a copy available for download for those that are interested!

Click — E-Scrap EPEAT Article to open article in a new window.

EPEAT

Environmentally Sensitive Materials: Materials experts have joined recent calls and provided input; September meetings will focus on organohalogens.

Materials Selection: Investigating recycled plastics and bio-based materials, policies.  Focusing on criteria for recycled plastics.

Design for End of Life/Product Logevity: Focusing on Design for EOL.  Reviewed currently existing ecolabels in the market with general agreement that Blue Angel methodology is the leading standard for environmental design criteria.  Forming discussion groups on disassembly criteria.

Energy Conservation: Discussing embodied energy and stand-by energy criterion.

EOL Mangement: Conducting webinars on R2 and e-Stewards.  Developing equivalency guidelines for potential inclusion in standard.

Corporate Performance: Discussion of various proposed criteria including GHS/carbon reporting, EICC, water disclosure, OHSA 18001.

Packaging: Reviewing first 4 criteria of existing 1680.1 standard and identifying additional information needs.

Consumables: Early in criteria development – use of recycled paper, remanufactured cartridges, materials selection, warranties, longevity etc.

Indoor Air Quality: Investigating GreenGuard, EU methods and types of data used by each.

EPEAT

EPEAT has been moving forward this summer with much interest and participation from our multistakeholder group.  Both the Imaging and Television development teams are hard at work in many subcommittees (and too many calls to keep track of, sometimes!) beginning work on the development of both unique and common criteria.  At the same time, the non-sustantive changes to the IEEE 1680 computer standard have been completed and are now being reballoted.  Once the reballoting is complete (June 29th), as long as the voting is for approval, there will be an IEEE 1680 Umbrella standard and the IEEE 1680.1 Computer standard during the end of 2009 or very early 2010.  Additionally, the 1680.1 computer standard will be open for full revision to the working group most likely in September 2009.  It is expected that this will be at least a year long (if not longer) process where all criteria will be examined.  Potential common criteria are already under development by Imaging and Televisions and computer working group members can already join those groups though there is a lot of cross over amongst the teams so, in most cases, computers are already being represented.

Imaging Working Group Update: The last WG call was 6.25.09 where we had presentations on EUP and the work EPEAT/GEC is doing for branding.   There will also be a LCA Webinar as that has been requested by many – there has been much discussion as how to include LCA considerations in EPEAT but a greater understanding is needed.

Subgroups also reported out.  5 of the 11 groups have merged, or will soon merge, with the Television subgroups – EOL Management, Materials Selection, Packaging, Corporate Performance, and Environmentally Sensitive Materials.  At the July meeting, subgroups will begin with more detailed report outs and potential criteria for full working group discussions.

Television Working Group: This group met 6.23.09.  It was a very similar meeting to the Imaging WG in that we discussed the need for the LCA webinar and were given a presentation on the Consumer Visibility that GEC/EPEAT is now working on.  Most TV subgroups have met several times now and 5 of these groups are merged with their corresponding Imaging subgroups to develop common criteria and determine the need for any product-specific criteria.  Some key topic for the subgroups include R2 and E-stewards recycling standards, the inclusion of manufacturing chemicals in EPEAT,  use of ENERGY STAR and how it is communicated to the market.

Other notes of interest:

1. Verification Round 4 has begun for computer manufacturers.  It is the goal of EPEAT to conduct 4 verification rounds each year and this is the second for 2009.

2. Small Business Resources, including the Schaffer Environmetnal Training Webinars, are now available.

3. The next GEC Board of Advisors meeting is tentatively scheduled for December 2009 in Austin, Texas.  The Board of Advisors meeting is open to the public, in case you are interested in attending!

Uncategorized

The Electronic Product Stewardship Canada 2009 update to the Design for Environment (DfE) report on electronics has been posted here.  This report was commissioned by EPSC last year and completed earlier this year by a team from the Green Electronics Council.  Schaffer Environmental was the lead project manager for this project and a great team was assembled to perform the research.

I hope the report is useful and please provide feedback here or to EPSC so the next update to the report can be even better.

Click here for the EPSC DfE Report Page!

Mark

DFE, Knowsgreen Projects DFE, EPSC

Not all carbon calculators are created equal…in fact, if you provide the same starting information to 10 different calculators, you will likely get ten totally different answers that could vary by several orders of magnitude.  Does that mean that each of them is wrong?  Not necessarily… part of the issue with calculating carbon emissions today comes from what assumptions are made and what standards are used in the calculations.  There is no single “right” carbon calculation factor today.  And since there is a variety of conversion protocols to choose from – TRACI, WRI/WBCSD, Climate Registry etc – it is not currently possible to get a definitive carbon number.

So, what are you to do?  Gil Friend has collected many online calculators today here.  It is a very good list if you are looking for what is available today and also takes advantage of social media and asks you to rank the calculators you try.  I would recommend the free online calculators only to give you an idea of what your carbon footprint may be.  If you really are interested in developing a baseline and report on your carbon, you need to understand more the underlying methodology of the conversion factors and choose those that are more reflective of your regional location and/or product type.  And generally those are not free today.  Several good sources are in the links section of my site where you can find out more about these carbon calculators.

Carbon Carbon, software

The EPEAT 1680.2 Imaging standard has established a variety of subgroups to begin work on criteria and definitions for this standard.  Below is my initial summary of these groups and any issues they have uncovered.  Mostly, there is a call for additional stakeholders so I would ask that if you can, please join the discussions in these subgroups.

Indoor Air Quality – Preliminary discussion on scope of products, definition questions. Committed to gather information from similar programs that have IAQ requirements for future use.

Environmentally Sensitive Materials – Covered issues of common criteria using 4.1 section with most items as common criteria. Need to coordinate closely with definitions and consumables committee. Using energy star standard for definition of Imaging Devices at this time.

Materials Selection – Reviewed current standard; working on keeping meetings to a minimum. No substantial findings/conclusions at this time, mostly logistical discussion

Design for End of Life – Has not met. Meets April 3 to discuss org issues and common criteria. Think need some more information on the end-of-life system to help set what design for end-of-life should cover. Suggesting a presentation to the group on what definitions need to be considered – in terms of imaging devices and types. Wide variety of products could be covered.

Energy Conservation – Reviewed 1680.1. All criteria should be common. Group will look at more. Questions about what energy conservation and what corporate performance would cover – Embodied Energy came up. Seeking more NGO representation for the group.

EOL Management – Reviewed 1680.1 4.6 criteria. Take back and Audit should be common with modifications; battery take back doesn’t apply to imaging. Main question is around consumables – what subgroup will address EOL management for consumables, this group or the consumables group?

Corporate Performance –  First meeting had limited attendance.   Focus is on increasing attendance before launching into many discussions however initial requests to gather any information on corporate performance issues in EUP as well as what new issues like climate change and LCA’s might need to be looked at and by which subgroups were discussed.

Packaging – Reviewed 1680.1 and the eco-label matrix. Considering long list of criteria from these. Need to refer back to definitions that have already been developed – recovered content, recyclability etc.

Consumables – Need to define what the scope of this WG is supposed to be. Some agreement that imaging equipment needs to use Green consumables but not really defining what a green consumables would be. Need to define what consumables come from each of the covered imaging products as defined in 1680.2.

Definitions – No NGO or purchasers represented.  Will review e-star definitions, any issues/concerns there. Also includes marking technologies. Asking for folks to join the SG.

EPEAT 1680.2, EPEAT, Imaging, subgroups

Recently, several  sustainability consultants with a passion for the arts got together on the phone to figure out a way to combine our green knowledge and our artistic drives. … what came out of this conversation is a group for Greening the Arts .  We provide sustainability consulting to artists and the various support for those artists, be it the venues they play in or display their work , the instruments they use or the way they are promoted – we are dedicated to making those efforts more sustainable.

Our group has decades of international sustainability experience with multi-national corporations to small businesses.  We are also photographers, guitar aficionados, surfers, international travelers, music lovers and even a frisbee golf champion.  So, we know how to play too.  And we think that it is important to combine these passions in support of the artists today.

Green Arts Green Arts

Imaging Work Group

The subgroups for the EPEAT Imaging workgroup have formed and will be meeting over the next two weeks.  Subgroups have formed for each of the 8 existing EPEAT categories.  In addition, 2 additional potential categories have formed groups – consumables and emissions/air quality.  Also, a product definitions group has formed to define the different products that will be included in the scope of the standard.

The main task for the subgroups will initially be to identify possible criteria that are common across the existing and potential EPEAT standards – Computers, Imaging and Televisions.   From there, subgroups will focus on developing and/or modifying criteria and building consensus among the stakeholders prior to draft criteria being circulated to the full working group for voting.

Television Studygroup

The primary goal of the TV studygroup is to develop a Project Authorization Request (PAR) and then vote to accept or reject this PAR.  It has been decided that a 75% approval/acceptance will be required to approve the PAR and establish a TV Workgroup that would then be tasked with developing the EPEAT criteria.

The PAR is basically finalized though there are a few more questions that the study group chairs are investigating and will report back to the group at the next meeting.  It is anticipated that a vote on the PAR will occur at the next study group meeting in April.

Other Information

A face to face meeting will take play June 8 and 9 in Washington DC for both the Imaging and TV groups as part of the development of the criteria for each standard.

EPEAT Group on LinkedIn started last week.   Looking to have some good, open discussions about EPEAT and GEC.

EPEAT EPEAT, Imaging, Televisions