Embedding the system into your new product design process

Many companies will want to use their membership of the club to embed the environmental design and compliance system into their new product design process to:

  • Manage compliance with product environmental regulatory requirements
  • Gain business benefits from cost-effective EcoDesign improvements
  • Generate the required compliance documentation for certification to the IEC 62430 standard

To ensure success, we recommend companies should implement the following actions at the outset.

Gain senior management commitment

Commitment and support from senior management at the company is vital to ensuring that the environmental design and compliance system is successfully embedded into the new product design process. This should include the CEO, Managing Director, R&D Director or Marketing Director.

Senior management may decide to document their commitment in the form of an environmental design policy statement along the following lines:

Our products impact on the environment during their manufacture, distribution, use and at end-of-life. We are committed to minimizing the environmental impacts and associated costs of our products across these life cycle stages. We recognize that products which require fewer inputs of materials and utilities and which generate less pollution and waste during life will reduce business cost and benefit the environment.

We will integrate the environmental design and compliance system into our new product design process to ensure that we:

  • Gain a better understanding of the life cycle environmental impacts of our products, including gathering information from relevant suppliers where possible
  • Set EcoDesign targets to minimize significant environmental impacts where possible, taking account of other product requirements and business requirements
  • Evaluate final product designs against the EcoDesign targets and seek to address any deviations in future designs
  • Provide information to customers on how to (install,) use (and maintain) our products to minimize environmental impacts and associated costs during expected service life
  • Provide recycling instructions for safe handling and treatment of our products at end-of-life

The environmental design policy statement could be incorporated into an update of an existing policy (e.g. environmental policy, EHS policy, sustainability policy, quality policy etc) or published as a separate environmental design policy. Senior Management may decide to communicate the policy statement to all staff together with a brief covering letter explaining that the company is putting the policy statement into practice by joining the ENVIRON Environmental design and compliance club.

Appoint an EcoDesign Team

Implementing EcoDesign targets can require action from a wide range of business functions. To ensure that EcoDesign targets are evaluated and supported across the business, senior management should appoint an EcoDesign team comprising representatives from:

  • Design
  • Purchasing
  • Manufacturing
  • Marketing
  • Quality
  • Environment and health and safety

Up to four team members should attend the one-day kick-off workshop. Team members should log into the subsequent detailed webinars on specific issues, as appropriate to their role and responsibilities in the company. The team should hold periodic conference calls / meetings as required to:

  • Integrate the environmental design and compliance system into the company's new product design process
  • Apply the environmental design and compliance system to at least one of the company’s products during the club kick-off workshop and webinars, as a worked example. This is discussed in more detail in section 6.4
  • Prepare a short (e.g. two pages) case study to explain the worked example, its significant life cycle impacts, the EcoDesign targets that were set to reduce these impacts, and progress towards their achievement (see section 6.4). ENVIRON will provide guidance on how to write the case study and also provide examples of similar case studies that ENVIRON has produced at other companies.

Appoint an EcoDesign Champion

Senior management should appoint an EcoDesign champion to coordinate the team and provide progress reports as required. The EcoDesign champion should also represent the company on the Steering Group, to provide feedback to ENVIRON on the structure, content and delivery of the Club (see section 4.5). Steering group meetings will be held by conference call to minimise time commitments.

Apply the system to develop worked examples

To gain tangible business benefits from the club ENVIRON recommends that the member company should apply the environmental design and compliance system to at least one of the company’s products during the kickoff workshop and webinars. Senior management should provide sufficient resources and support so that this product can become a worked example of how the environmental design and compliance system has been integrated into the company's new product design process. This will also prepare the necessary documentary evidence should the company wish to apply for certification to the IEC 62430 international standard.

Choosing a product and sharing information

The company will be asked to notify ENVIRON regarding what product they have chosen to work on during the kickoff workshop and webinars. For example, a company may choose to work on an existing product with high volume but lower margin, where even small EcoDesign improvements can generate worthwhile cost savings.

The company will also be asked to notify ENVIRON on whether they intend to share information about this product with the other companies in their network group. For example, the company may be happy to circulate certain information about the product to other companies, but keep other product information confidential. It will be for companies to circulate this information - all product information which the company communicates to ENVIRON will be treated as confidential unless the company has already circulated it.

Where possible, the company should bring the example product and its packaging to the kickoff workshop, together with associated documentation (e.g. bill of materials, exploded parts diagram, product marketing literature etc) and any tools required for product disassembly and examination. In our experience, it is important for ENVIRON to provide early feedback to companies on specific EcoDesign improvements which are directly relevant to their particular products. Subject to permission from the company, these example products may also be used to illustrate particular aspects of EcoDesign during the subsequent webinars.

Intellectual property rights

During its membership of the club a company may generate intellectual property or works which relate to the business of the member. ENVIRON wishes to confirm that it does not have any interests in or ownership of any such works and any such Intellectual Property Rights.

Case study to summarise EcoDesign outcomes

Once the company has been through the environmental design and compliance system with the example product, we recommend that the company should develop a short case study (e.g. two pages) to explain the worked example, its significant life cycle impacts, the EcoDesign targets that were set to reduce these impacts, and any progress that has been made towards their achievement. Many of the EcoDesign targets may require extensive design effort and it may not be possible to fully implement them within the five month timescale of the kickoff workshop and webinars. However, these targets should still be documented in the case study. ENVIRON will provide guidance on how to write the case study and also provide examples of similar case studies that ENVIRON has produced at other companies.

For further information, please contact Dr Aidan Turnbull
Head of WEEE, RoHS & EcoDesign on +44 (0)1225 748420