Many companies want to make “greener” products, either to establish leadership or in response to demand from customers, investors, stakeholders, or legislators. Across the product lifecycle, there are different ways to reduce a product’s impact through design, the materials used, increasing energy efficiency, or including recycled content. To avoid the charge of “greenwashing,” the changes need to stand up to scrutiny. The most well-known tool to help companies evaluate products and make these decisions is Life Cycle Assessment (LCA).
The use of certain chemicals in products is one area of product greening that is particularly subject to legislative and customer demands. Making changes to products is a large investment, and it is important to be sure that any changes are the correct ones. Replacing a chemical can take two years and cost $5-10 million. HP has taken a pioneering approach to assessing alternatives to restricted chemicals using GreenScreen. This integrated assessment approach is faster and easier to complete than LCA or complete risk assessments. The new approach is benefiting the whole industry and has saved millions of dollars. It has also protected human health and the environment by reducing hazards, such as the toxicity of electronic products.
The electronics industry faces increasing regulatory and consumer pressure to remove hazardous substances from their products. Chemical regulation, such the EU Directive for the Restriction of the Use of Certain Hazardous Substances in Electrical and Electronic Equipment (RoHS), has already restricted some materials. More will be restricted in the future. The EU Directive does not indicate what alternatives should be used. All unregulated substances are equally acceptable under the law and there are very limited legal testing requirements for substances in articles. Yet many alternatives have not been sufficiently studied, available data is inconsistent, and risk phrases vary on different databases. This means that while alternatives may appear better, the real hazards may be unknown. This could lead to regrettable substitutions and significantly higher environmental, health, and financial impacts.
There are also demands from public-sector customers, who request eco-labels on products that restrict the use of certain chemicals. These voluntary policy instruments move expectations much faster than legislation, because they produce criteria adopted in public-sector request for proposals. Flame retardants, for example, have been subject to many restrictions and are mentioned in about 70% of all criteria. They have been the number one chemical subject of request for proposals for decades.
Evaluating “greener” alternatives
GreenScreen for Safer Chemicals is an open-source, comparative chemical hazard assessment tool developed by the nongovernmental organization Clean Production Action. It was adopted by HP in 2007. The process starts with a hazard-based screening to help rule out alternatives that are of equal or greater concern than the substances they would replace. Since the program began, we have completed over 160 assessments of materials that account for more than 80% of the weight of our products, including low-halogen power cords, brominated flame-retardant alternatives, and general plastic resins. We have also used the tool to evaluate cleaners we use in the manufacturing process.
As a result of adopting GreenScreen, hazard assessments are faster and easier to complete than LCA or complete risk assessments. This means undesirable chemicals can be ruled out before we invest time and money in product development.
Working with the supply chain
The adoption of GreenScreen has wider benefits for the electronics industry as a whole, including the supply chain. Adopting the tool is a proactive way of raising the quality of the selection process of alternative chemical substances. For chemical producers, we make it clear that we will not use any substance with a poor score. If major data gaps are the reason for the low score, the chemical producers then have a financial incentive to do additional testing, which may be able to show a low hazard factor.
HP has also been able to use GreenScreen to engage with formulators directly, bypassing more complex parts of the supply chain. Flame retardants and plasticizers were the first two classes of materials assessed. Using the GreenScreen benchmark score and hazard table, HP communicated the desired attributes directly with formulators. This prompted the suppliers to examine their materials and look for alternatives with lower impacts. It also led Pinfa, an industry group regarding non-halogenated flame retardants, to perform a pilot GreenScreen project to identify preferred alternatives.
The GreenScreen has also enabled a PVC-free power cord project to progress past regulatory approval and to complete performance tests, after suppliers used it to test their resin components. Meanwhile, a partnership with spot cleaner formulators has allowed HP to develop effective cleaners that meet our hazard criteria.
Leading the industry
To advance the industry-wide elimination of substances of concern, HP is working with external stakeholders to promote the integration of the GreenScreen tool into eco label certification and government regulation. In 2012, we continued to participate in the Green Chemistry and Commerce Council’s plasticizer alternatives assessment project, which employs GreenScreen. HP is an active member of the Business-NGO Working Group for Safer Chemicals and Sustainable Materials, which published the chemical alternatives assessment protocol that other industries can use to improve their materials selection processes.
HP is also in final talks with TCO, the highly respected European sustainable IT eco label. The TCO looks set to become the first eco label internationally to adopt the GreenScreen tool. HP is forging partnerships with the European Commission, Pinfa, and other agencies such as the European Chemicals Agency, the electronics and chemicals industry, Nordic Swan, Blue Angel, and others. Our goal is to promote the creation of shared chemical “white lists” of preferred chemicals.
By integrating the GreenScreen framework into our overall alternatives assessment protocol, HP can more easily select replacement materials with reduced risks for human health and the environment.
Links for further reading:
http://www8.hp.com/us/en/hp-information/global-citizenship/reporting.html
http://www.cleanproduction.org/Home.php
http://ges.corp.hp.com/chemicals/Green%20Screen%20data/index.htm