Climate Action 2012-2013

INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGY
deleterious impact on the environment and on
the health of manufacturing workers, and endof-life
processors of e-waste?
Presuming that the ICT industry remains reliant
on a widely distributed global supply chain, the
impact of improvements in the production and
recycling of electronics can have a worldwide
positive or negative effect on social and economic
development, and reduce or increase potential
environmental degradation. Resolving these
questions and establishing norms and mechanisms
to support best practice can benefit countries and
individuals around the globe.
CURRENT STATUS
The ICT industry has moved to address many
issues relative to environmental and social
sustainability. That is not to say that the issues have
been resolved, but they have been well defined by
industry and interested stakeholder groups, and
many active programmes have been established to
address them.
Legislative and regulatory initiatives around the
globe have proliferated in recent years to address:
Problematic materials. The European
Restriction of Hazardous Substances
directive (RoHS) and its Chinese
counterpart (China RoHS) have had global
impact; companies are engaged in internal
design and engineering efforts aimed at
toxic content reduction.
E-waste collection and processing.
Dozens of countries around the world
now have e-waste collection and recycling
regulations in place or in process; a wide
array of best management and certification
programmes identify responsible processors.
Multinational initiatives like the UN’s
Solving the E-Waste Problem (StEP)
programme support capacity building in the
e-waste management sector.
Conflict minerals. US regulations and
purchaser preferences are driving increased
supply chain supervision and controls to
reduce looting of rare natural resources by
military means.
Manufacturing working conditions.
The Electronics Industry Code of Conduct
and numerous company initiatives have
been established to attempt to curb worker
exploitation. The complexity of the global
supply chain and rapidity of turnover
continue to present serious challenges to
these efforts but progress is being made.
Importantly, significant ICT purchasers have
supported these positive steps through widespread
adoption of purchasing requirements to address
the triple bottom line of environmental, social
and economic sustainability. Such purchasing
initiatives have been supported by a broad array
of national ecolabels, and more broadly enabled
by transnational product certifications such as the
Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool
(EPEAT) and TCO, that address product attributes,
resource efficiency and end-of-life (EOL)
environmental impacts.
“The fundamental challenge
to ICT manufacturers is
how to meet burgeoning
market demand in the face of
increasing resource constraints.”
A ROAD MAP FORWARD
The sector has put significant effort into
slowing the growth of environmental impact
through design and engineering innovation and
environmental initiatives, even as production
increases. In the future, that effort must be
intensified to achieve real reductions in the
worldwide impact of the ICT sector. Laudable
though they are, current efforts rely on addressing
known problems and eliminating well-understood
risks. Even within the R&D functions of
manufacturing companies, where great effort is put
into development of safer products and processes,
the focus often remains relatively near-term and
looks to substitutions and modest changes to
reduce environmental and human impacts.
A much more future-oriented approach will
be needed to develop a truly sustainable ICT
sector. Such an approach must involve broad
and challenging questions that go well beyond
the content of products to consider aspects of
the sector’s business model and value chain
management. Such questions are summarised in
the following section.
climateactionprogramme.org 131