Training and support

The environmental design and compliance club provides training and support to assist consumer electronics manufacturers to:

  • Use our web-based environmental design and compliance system, so that logging into www.consumer-ecodesign.com becomes an integral part of the company's new product design process.
  • Prepare for compliance with the EuP Directive.
  • Understand the CERT programme and how designing more energy efficient products may enable the manufacturer to gain CERT funding from British Gas for sales of new products and existing, more energy efficient products.

The club is led by ENVIRON Senior Manager Peter Evans who was previously Senior Manager for Environment Europe at Sony. Peter has 29 years experience in the consumer electronics industry including managing senior management positions in engineering, manufacturing and environment.

Whilst at Sony, Peter was responsible for environmental issues for Sony's TV business in Europe including:

  • Research and development of new materials and processes
  • Design for the Environment
  • Hazardous substances elimination and substitution
  • Energy efficiency
  • Sustainable production

Peter's primary objective at Sony was to bring the experience he had gained in manufacturing and engineering into the design process to reduce the life cycle environmental impacts of TV products. His main approach was to move from end-of-pipe solutions to upstream actions that would tackle the environmental impacts at source.

Working with British Gas, Peter developed one of the first EEC funding schemes for consumer electronics products in the UK. This scheme is one of the most successful company EEC funding schemes in the consumer electronics industry. It has generated over £1 million revenue for use in promotion and research and development of more energy efficient products.

The training and support programme comprises a kick-off workshop in London followed by a series of webinars on key environmental design and product regulatory compliance issues.

Kick-off workshop in London

We will organize member companies into groups of up to 10 companies to attend a kick-off workshop in London. Our experience of running similar Clubs shows that groups of up to 10 companies are an optimum size to provide opportunities for sharing of information and experience between companies. This will also enable ENVIRON to give each company in each group the opportunity for individual advice during the workshop.

The one-day kick-off workshop will explain how the Environmental Design and Compliance System complies with the draft International Standard IEC 62430: Environmentally Conscious Design of Electrical and Electronic Products and Systems, and how to use the system to:

  • Identify and manage compliance with product environmental regulatory requirements (RoHS, WEEE, REACH, EuP, Batteries, Packaging etc)
  • Carry out an initial product review and set high-level EcoDesign targets for environmental cost savings
  • Assess the product’s life cycle EcoDesign aspects and set detailed targets for environmental cost savings
  • Carry out an safety and performance risk assessment of the targets
  • Gather information from suppliers to input into the detailed design process
  • Verify product compliance environmental regulatory requirements and performance against EcoDesign targets
  • Prepare environmental information for customers
  • Prepare recycling instructions

This will be illustrated providing examples of compliance documentation which was generated during testing of the system by product design teams in the US and the UK.

The workshop will summarise the latest knowledge on the EuP Directive from our work with the BERR Electronics Knowledge Transfer Network. In particular, the workshop will:

  • explain the proposed EcoDesign requirements and the status of implementing measures
  • provide advice on design options that product designers should consider to comply with the requirements.

Finally, the workshop will explain the CERT programme and how designing more energy efficient products may enable the manufacturer to gain CERT funding from British Gas for sales of new products and existing, more energy efficient products.

The presentations from the kick-off workshop will also be available as pre-recorded webinars from the www.consumer-ecodesign.com website. This enables member companies who were not able to attend the workshop to play the audio/video files on their computers in their own time.

Webinars

Following the introduction workshop, ENVIRON will deliver a series of one-hour webinars to provide practical advice and guidance on the issues listed below. The webinars will be delivered over a five month period and each webinar will be followed by a question and answer session. The webinars will be recorded so that member companies who were not able to attend the web meetings can play the audio/video files on their computers in their own time.

Practical compliance requirements for product environmental regulations

  • RoHS
  • WEEE
  • Power Supplies
  • Batteries
  • Packaging
  • Latest developments on REACH Regulation
  • Latest developments on the EuP Directive

Best practice EcoDesign technologies and techniques

  • Environmentally friendly materials selection (includes metals, plastics, coatings and finishes)
  • Mechanical design (includes design to minimize material consumption, design for injection moulding, design for assembly/disassembly)
  • Electronic and electrical design (includes power consumption, batteries, circuit boards)
  • Packaging
  • Design for recycling
  • Case study examples of EcoDesign benefits (includes example companies who have benefited from reduced manufacturing costs, reduced end-of-life costs, environmental marketing, functionality and service innovation)
  • Novel, emerging and alternative technologies
  • Product Service Systems and Eco-Innovation

In addition, ENVIRON will invite a selection of external industry experts to provide additional webinar presentations on related key topics.

Support

The environmental design and compliance club provides ongoing support to assist consumer electronics manufacturers, including:

  • E-mail alerts to signpost members to new or updated items. For example, that a new webinar or guidance note has been produced to explain a new item of product environmental legislation, new EcoDesign technique, additional information on selecting greener materials, etc.
  • Online questions to the ENVIRON panel of experts. Each of the topic pages within the web system includes an area in the right hand column where the user can ask a question about that particular topic.

Steering group to oversee content and delivery of the Club

Each member company will be invited to join a steering group to provide feedback to ENVIRON on the structure, content and delivery of the Club. The purpose of the steering group will be to ensure that the Club continues to meet the needs of member companies. Steering group meetings will be held each month by conference call to minimise time commitments.

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