Column: Going Green


Many factors affect a product’s impact on the environment – from cradle to grave and beyond


orientated design improvements, suitable indicators and requirements for the supply chain be derived,” said Karsten Schischke, expert for environmental assessment and ecodesign at the Fraunhofer Institute for Reliability and Microintegration IZM. Schischke and his team have taken on the challenging reality that hardly any data on the service life and utility of new products is known.


Electronics goes green


By Olga Putsykina, Fraunhofer IZM A


lthough life-cycle assessments (LCAs) do not save the environment directly, they do make the industry think. In the electronics sector, each electronic product, useful as it may be, comes with a heavy ecological baggage: from extraction of the raw materials used, to


the design decisions made about its use and disposal, each step in the manufacturing process leaves a mark on the environment. With this in mind, researchers at Fraunhofer IZM analyse the entire life cycle of electronic products and product groups on the basis of standardised benchmarks and ISO norms, and develop optimisation processes.


Making a mark A rapidly-increasing number of manufacturers and users are interested in products’ environmental impact. Te focus is not only on what a product can do, but also on the conditions under which it was made. Tis movement is nowadays supported by politics, too: for example, the Second Circular Economy Action Plan of the European Commission outlines how environmental management and product design must be as resource-saving and climate-neutral as possible. Life-cycle assessments include complex factors and, if possible,


all conceivable scenarios. Energy consumption of the device is what counts in the evaluation, as well as its life-long repairs and maintenance. When a product has reached the end of its useful life, its recycling and disposal can also trigger further environmental impacts, which must be included in its overall LCA. “It is essential to have an understanding not only of the analysis but also of the technologies at stake. Only then can solution-


12 March 2021 www.electronicsworld.com


Based on standards Fraunhofer IZM is qualified to perform LCAs for companies as an independent third-party due to its many years of expertise in the field of microelectronics. Based on the relevant ISO standards for life cycle assessment and environmental management, researchers at Fraunhofer IZM evaluate and verify LCAs of third parties, to contribute above all to the ecological optimisation of products and processes. LCAs indicate which substances need to be substituted or which processes must be changed, to adhere to the ecological goal. Preparing an LCA is not a five-minute process. For


example; recently, Fraunhofer experts prepared an LCA for the sustainably-developed smartphone called Fairphone, which contains several replaceable modular components. Fairphone users are thus encouraged to have the phone repaired rather than disposed of. Fraunhofer IZM’s LCA study showed that despite a


sustainable product design, the Fairphone initially causes greater environmental impact during production because more individual components are produced for its modular composition. If this modularity, in turn, contributes to a longer service life for the overall product, the impact then decreases. Whether this also applies to the successor generation of the phone, the Fairphone 3, the future will tell. “Having a product better for the environment is the goal,


not necessarily its perfect assessment,” said Schischke. “LCAs are dynamic. Reparability, modularity and product design – all factors should be considered from day one to create a more sustainable product.”


Other factors In addition to all these factors during an LCA, greenhouse gas emissions that arise during the manufacture of a product, i.e., in the upstream chains of imported goods, should be priced, too. Tis goes hand-in-hand with the calculation of greenhouse gas emissions at European level, which has far-reaching effects with the CO2


tax. Schischke and his team see great potential in environmental


assessment, despite the challenges: “Climate neutrality is already a real goal for many companies. However, many companies only focus on the effects of their own production and energy consumption, but it is as important to look at the supply chain in order to procure only climate-neutral components in the medium- and long-term.”


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