Electronics OEMs Issue Sustainability Report

The Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), Arlington, Va., has released what it calls a consumer electronics environmental sustainability report.

“Environmental Sustainability and Innovation in the Consumer Electronics Industry” is the title of the report that the CEA says analyzes the industry’s progress toward greater environmental sustainability.

The report, conducted for CEA by research firm Technology Forecasters Inc. (TFI), points to that it calls several accomplishments, including on the recycling front. Those accomplishments include:

• In what CEA calls a “strong recycling commitment,” among 64 electronics companies surveyed, more than two-thirds (69 percent) report they are actively recycling electronic products and components, and 38 percent report reuse of the electronics products they make or use. Together, these actions have helped to recycle nearly 800,000 tons of electronic scrap, according to CEA.
• Improved energy efficiency has been accomplished with “continuous improvement across the industry in nearly every product,” according to the group. “The widespread shift from CRT to LCD monitors that occurred earlier this decade reduced average energy use per monitor by about 30 percent,” notes a CEA news release.
• Relative greenhouse gas reduction is also touted. “Among the major consumer electronics companies that reported greenhouse gas emissions from 2004 to 2007, seven of the 10 have achieved a reduction per [each] one million dollars of revenue,” according to CEA.

 “This study demonstrates the industry’s commitment to environmental sustainability through eco-design, energy efficiency, green manufacturing and electronics recycling,” says Gary Shapiro, president and CEO of CEA. “We are proud of our accomplishments thus far, but there is still work to be done. We look forward to the day the consumer electronics industry fully achieves our collective environmental sustainability goals.”

The report observes how improved designs have enabled the production of products that allow for increased recycling, among other topics, according to the CEA news release.

The full report is available at www.CE.org/green.