The Total Product Life Cycle
The electronics industry, as well as other industry sectors, is facing an increasing number of demands focused on reducing the environmental impacts of how products are designed, manufactured, used, and managed at end-of-life. As evidenced through "green" procurement policies and emerging European legislation such as Registration, Evaluation and Authorisation of Chemicals (REACH) and Energy Using Products (EuP), the global marketplace is increasingly demanding product environmental improvements, as well as increased access to environmental information that relates to the product life cycle.
Globalization within the industry has impacted management of the product life cycle by involving more participants in the process, which makes the process more complex. This also poses unique challenges in determining how environmental aspects of one stage in the life cycle (material selection, for example) impact another stage in the cycle (end-of-life management, for example).
In order to meet these challenges, Dell established the Design for the Environment (DfE) Program to integrate environmental attributes into each aspect of the product life cycle, from supplier management during component manufacturing to end-of-life solutions. This methodology encourages reduction of the most significant environmental aspects of the life cycle without unnecessarily burdening the supply chain.
Environmental Management System Implementation
Dell's Product Development Group has recently achieved certification to the ISO 14001 standard, an accomplishment which took approximately two years to complete. Third-party auditing verified that our design activities are compliant with this internationally recognized standard for environmental management system criteria
Establishing a formalized approach to our planning, goal setting, auditing and corrective actions will help support regulatory compliance and continual improvement in our product design. A good example of where ISO 14001 certification will support adherence to new legislation is in EuP. This law refers to ISO 14001 as a way to demonstrate compliance to a specific component of the requirement. Becoming certified is a way in which Dell has enabled our strategy of being proactive.
Gaining certification for Dell's product development organization is part of our overall corporate ISO 14001 certification program, which now covers all manufacturing sites around the world and includes organizations such as Services, Procurement and Logistics..
Product Energy Efficiency and Improvements
ENERGY STAR Products
Dell has actively participated in the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) ENERGY STAR program for more than a decade. During this time, Dell has offered many desktop, workstation, laptop, printer, and display models that meet the requirements for ENERGY STAR qualification. Our decision to design products to meet these requirements has reduced energy consumption, thereby reducing electricity costs for our customers and reducing environmentally-sensitive materials produced during power generation. Dell's unique build-to-order model increases efficiency and eliminates waste while allowing systems to be built to customer specifications that meet ENERGY STAR qualifications.
Many of the desktop, workstation and laptop products designed by Dell today consume less than 5 watts in low-power mode and exceed the current levels set by the EPA for energy efficiency. Dell chose to factory-default the power management settings to meet the EPA requirements for ENERGY STAR compliance for OptiPlex platforms offered to the public starting in May 2003. Dell has also taken the extra step of reducing the amount of time before entering low-power mode to save even more energy, from the 30 minutes required by the EPA for ENERGY STAR compliance, to 15 minutes. This provides our customers with a means of conserving energy costs, and the resulting reduction in energy requirements may help reduce the effects of air pollution and global warming.
