Expanding environmental information management: Meeting future requirements in the electronics industry

Abstract

The environmental impact of product manufacturing, use, and disposal has become a worldwide concern. Laws and regulations designed to protect human health and the environment are being established throughout the global community. In addition to regulatory needs, manufacturing networks have begun to respond to market driven ecoefficiency and sustainability requirements. To optimize manufacturing systems for these requirements, information must flow freely upstream and downstream during a product's lifecycle. This information includes regulatory compliance information, material content, energy use, and test data among others types of information. To modify systems to effectively manage these data requires an understanding of what information is required. This paper discusses both regulatory and voluntary information needs with a focus on electronics industry efforts for environmental information management and exchange. The information needs are broken down into regulatory information (compliance information, material content, etc.) and voluntary information (lifecycle assessment, cradle to cradle, etc). © Springer-Verlag London Limited 2009.