Understanding Sustainability
Customer demand for environmentally friendly digital imaging products has increased over the past several years, according to manufacturers that participated in a comprehensive survey on sustainability practices conducted by Buyers Laboratory. Indeed, many manufacturers claimed that not only has the increase in demand risen, but overall public knowledge of what types of features to look for in an environmentally friendly product has increased as well. When it comes to determining the environmental friendliness of digital imaging equipment and that of its manufacturer, there are many factors for the customer to consider. For example, what chemicals are used in the product? Does the product offer features such as duplexing or toner- or energy-save mode? Does the manufacturer recycle its products?
To find out about manufacturers’ environmental initiatives across a range of aspects, BLI asked 14 document imaging manufacturers to participate in a comprehensive survey on sustainability practices; nine manufacturers returned surveys. Manufacturers were asked about their most environmentally friendly products, waste reduction programs and recycling, eco-label certifications for their products, regulatory compliance progress, types of chemicals used in their products, how they define carbon footprint, their use of natural resources, how they reduce waste, and pollution, in-house environmental initiatives, third-party procurement policies, challenges faced and future “green” endeavors.
Environmentally Friendly Product Features
Environmentally friendly features found on digital imaging equipment include instant- or quick-fusing technology, duplexing, toner- and energy-save modes, as well as the ability to use recycled paper.
Six of the manufacturers surveyed incorporate instant- or quick-fusing technology into some or all of their product lines, which eliminates or greatly reduces a device’s warm-up time, and in turn saves energy. This technology can refer to two different types of energy-saving technologies. While some manufacturers have developed a fast-melting toner that fuses more quickly, others have created a fuser that heats up faster than with previous units. Both methods of instant fusing use less energy than conventional fusing.
The majority of manufacturers surveyed incorporate toner-save mode in some or all of their products, which helps to reduce toner consumption by reducing the coverage on the output. All surveyed manufacturers offer energy-save modes for most of their products as well. Energy-save mode automatically places the document imaging device into a “sleep,” or a low-power mode, when the device has not been used for a certain amount of time.
Most surveyed manufacturers claim that all of their products can handle 30, 50 and 100 percent recycled paper. About half sell or recommend Forest Stewardship Council (FSC)-certified paper products, which means that materials used to produce the products were sourced responsibly. Plus, every manufacturer surveyed offers duplexing for at least some of its products.
Recycling and Reducing Waste
One way that manufacturers reduce waste is by refurbishing or remanufacturing devices. While some manufacturers recycle the outer shell and replace a few internal components, others completely disassemble the device at the end of its life and either disassemble and melt down various components to form new parts for new devices, or recycle them for completely different uses, such as roof shingles, while still others recycle the whole document imaging device. Most often, however, manufacturers recycle or reuse only the toner or ink cartridges, as well as plastic casings and a few metal components. While each surveyed manufacturer claims to design its products with recycling in mind and to use recycled materials to remanufacture new products, only six have a hardware recycling program and seven have a toner cartridge recycling program.
Regulatory Compliance
Many regions and countries require products to comply with certain governmental regulations. Among the most common electronic regulations are the Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) and Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE). WEEE places the responsibility for the disposal of waste electrical and electronic equipment, including removal and waste processing, as well as the financing of such processes, on the manufacturers of such equipment. The RoHS directive prohibits new electrical and electronic equipment in the European Union (EU) market from containing more than 0.1 percent by weight of lead, mercury, hexavalent chromium, polybrominated biphenyls (PBB) and polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDE) and 0.01 percent by weight of cadmium. Nearly every manufacturer surveyed claims some or all of its products are RoHS and WEEE compliant. However, the survey found that the majority of manufacturers surveyed still used polyvinyl chloride, brominated flame retardants, mercury and nickel. The only chemical group listed that the manufacturers surveyed have eradicated from document imaging product manufacturing is polybrominated biphenyls.
Two new directives introduced in the EU include Registration, Evaluation and Authorization of Chemicals (REACH) and Directive 2005-32-EC (EuP). The goals of REACH are to establish a coherent registration system for providing basic hazard and risk information on new and existing chemical substances manufactured in or imported into the EU; to move the burden of proof away from government regulatory agencies to the producing and importing companies; to make users of such chemicals responsible for providing information on uses and associated risks; to maintain the existing restriction system and to introduce an authorization procedure for the most hazardous substances; to ensure greater transparency and openness for the public by providing easier access to relevant information on chemicals; and to establish a central European entity to facilitate the administration of REACH and ensure that the system is applied in a harmonized way across the EU. Three of the manufacturers BLI surveyed claim to already comply with REACH, while all but one of the others are preparing for compliance.
EuP, or the Directive for Energy-using Products, requires manufacturers of electrical and electronic devices to record the life cycle of a product “in all its significant environmental aspects.” EuP encourages manufacturers to design products with the impact the product will have on the environment throughout its life in mind, including raw material selection and use; manufacturing; packaging, transport and distribution; installation and maintenance; use; and end-of-life. None of the manufacturers surveyed have met the directive’s goal, but most say they are preparing for compliance.
In addition to the directives discussed above, the manufacturers surveyed also comply with various eco-labels, such as Unites States ENERGY STAR. (See the report for a list of the eco labels supported by each manufacturer.)
Defining Carbon Footprint
Since the definition of carbon footprint can cover anything relating to a company from the type of paper placed in the printer to the emissions caused by company employees commuting to work every day, it is often hard to measure, especially with larger corporations. While few manufacturers define carbon footprint, many claim to be carbon neutral. But what does that actually mean?
Often when companies talk about being carbon neutral, they are referring to the carbon emissions from their manufacturing and transportation processes being offset, or neutralized, by some environmental initiative. For instance, if a certain amount of carbons are emitted through the production of one 35-ppm monochrome copier, that amount may be canceled out by the use of recycled content in the copier or the amount of waste diverted from landfills. Companies subtract the potential carbons from the actual carbons to arrive at a carbon-neutral result. The few manufacturers that responded to BLI’s survey question, “How do you define carbon footprint?” either gave examples of how they minimize their carbon footprint, such as by creating environmentally friendly products, or simply said that their company does not.
Environmental Violations
Information on the number of environmental violations is sometimes made available on a company’s Web site or in its sustainability reports. In addition to providing specific examples, many of the manufacturers surveyed listed their remediation progress, as well as steps in place to prevent future incidents. Four manufacturers cite specific examples of violations in their respective sustainability reports, as well as the cleanup status of incidents. A few others simply describe a plan of action against such incidents or give very general violation information.
In-House Initiatives
One way to determine how serious a company is about saving the environment is to look at its in-house initiatives, such as measures taken to save energy and reduce waste. For example, if a company or its facilities are ISO 14001-certified, then it has agreed to identify and control the environmental impact of its activities, products or services; to continually improve its environmental performance; and to implement a systematic approach to setting environmental objectives and targets, achieving them and demonstrating that they have been achieved.
Most surveyed manufacturers said they have ISO 14001 certification for most or all of their factories and other locations. Additional in-house initiatives employed by most of the surveyed manufacturers include carpooling; providing employee transportation; consolidating space; reducing greenhouse gases; internal recycling; telecommuting; using environmentally friendly shipping practices (e.g., using low-emission vehicles); recycled materials in everyday office use; energy-efficient servers and environmentally sound machine cleaning processes (e.g., no harmful chemicals); and reducing or eliminating waste whenever possible.
Green Procurement Policies
When evaluating a company’s environmental initiatives, buyers should also consider the third-party vendors from whom the manufacturer buys parts. Most manufacturers recognize this as a concern and include environmental criteria in their procurement policies. Although procurement policies differ slightly from manufacturer to manufacturer, a few of the respondents follow the guidelines of the Electronic Industry Code of Conduct (EICC), which lists criteria for environmental reporting, pollution prevention and resource reduction, the restriction of hazardous substances, water and solid waste and air emissions and product content restrictions based on applicable laws and regulations.
Future Endeavors
The plans for future environmentally friendly document imaging devices vary from manufacturer to manufacturer. Indeed, BLI received a variety of responses from the manufacturers surveyed when asked what areas they are focusing on improving or further developing:
Resource efficiency, carbon emissions and the use of bio plastics (plastic manufactured from biological materials, such as corn).
- Additional energy efficiency solutions for their products.
- Improving energy efficiency, as well as the “effective use of available resources.”
- Improve development of sustainable technology and services and increase sustainability of its operations and community involvement.
- Minimize wasted and unnecessary prints; minimize energy consumption per print; maximize reuse of materials and minimize landfill use; minimize emissions of ozone, noise and toner dust; and increase attractiveness as an employer for talented employees through its environmental initiatives.
- Reduce energy use and protect the climate; preserve biodiversity and the world’s forests; preserve clean air and water; and prevent and manage waste.