the eisa green awards
the eisa green awards Jorge Gonçalves, President EISA As the EISA Green Conference takes place this weekend, we are including an excerpt of an interview with Mr. Jorge Gonçalves, President of EISA, published in “NDS Sustainable Development Initiatives” – a Cleverdis publication available at IFA. The highly regarded EISA awards started 27 years ago as a simple European Camera of the Year award. What has started on that simple hotel terrace has now become THE industry award of the European market. We asked Mr Gonçalves about the awards and his views of the overall industry. EISA started giving out the first “Green Awards” in Europe four years ago. Why did EISA decide to do this? The original idea appeared in 2003 when I decided to look at the power consumption of a normal flat screen TV and started making calculations about what could happen when most of the European homes would have at least two TVs and the power consumption of each could be around 400…450 W. At the same time, we had to consider that the change from CRT to flat TVs was starting to happen and in a short time we could all face the problem of how to treat all the waste resulting from millions of discarded CRT TVs. It is my belief that EISA has to strive continually to deliver more to both consumers and industry, and that includes looking at being environmentally responsible and explaining to consumers how to select products that do not use hazardous materials and have reasonable power consumption in their categories. Protecting the environment is crucial for our children and future generations to come, and so EISA needs to examine the environmental impact of the products it scrutinizes. This year we have extended the original Green Award concept and added the Mobile Phone Green Award to the existing EISA Green TV Award. Why are the awards so important? Because there are no other awards that have such a wide coverage of countries and that are totally European. Getting the approval of representatives from across Europe proves to us that our standards are up to those of the consumers and to the industry. That’s why the industry believes EISA is important. The secret of the awards’ success is that they are trusted and respected by the industry - they are without doubt the most important European awards in our industry. Besides establishing yearly landmarks in sustainable development in consumer electronics products, we provide an incentive to the CE industry to try to improve their products for the environment. Year by year we see companies that take some hazardous materials Hall X.X / Stand XXX totally out the production line, further reduce the power consumption of electronic equipment, use recyclable or reusable packaging and so on. I can proudly say that in 2005 we were pioneers in terms of the Green Award and that in 2009 we are strongly contributing to the creation of a new conscience towards the environment from both consumers and companies. ICC Berlin, room 43 EISA Green Conference EISA and the sustainable development of consumer electronics products The first ever EISA Green Conference takes place on Saturday, the 5 th September, at 11 a.m., room 43 of ICC at IFA in Berlin. It is a roundtable with Mr. Wilfried Oppermann, Manager Sustainability & Environmental Projects of Panasonic; Jorge Gonçalves, President of EISA, Han Avôt, VP of EISA, Dr. Ab Stevels, head of the Green Award, and the winners of the EISA Green Award 2009-2010, LG and Samsung with Peter Weber, Head of the Press Working Group for ZVEI, moderating. The conference covers these following topics: • Origins of EISA’s Green Awards, dating back to 2004. • Green standards used to evaluate green products by the Universities of Delft (Holland) and Trondheim (Norway). • Aspects of the legislation under discussion in Brussels and that will classify electronic consumer goods in classes, depending on the average power consumption and other characteristics. Requisites for the definition of energy labels. • How can environmental aspects influence production of consumer electronics goods and what are the brands doing to implement environment protection measures. • Description by the two awarded companies in terms of EISA Green Awards of the motivations that gave origin to the distinctions given to their equipments and how environment considerations are influencing their production aspects. Hall X.X / Stand XXX IFA International • Saturday, 5 th & Sunday, 6 th September 2009 www.ifa-international.org 37
