IEC on Environmental Standardization for Electrical and Electronic Products and Systems

By Koichi Mori, Chairman of IEC Technical Committee 111, Environmental standardization for electrical and electronic products and systems

The link between the environment and health continues to engage people’s attention around the world. Whether the issue is climate change, the contamination of water, soil and air or the exploitation of such finite natural resources as water, petroleum and certain rare metals, people and governments are demanding more accountability from industry.

The IEC is playing a lead role in the formulation of solutions to environmental problems through its Technical Committee 111, which deals with "Environmental standardization for electrical and electronic products and systems".

The Technical Committee devotes itself to the development of international standards that will help industry to comply with environmental laws and regulations. Although it has existed only since October 2004, it has already made much progress in the development of solutions to several pressing environmental issues.

Meeting of IEC TC 111 on 25 October 2007 in Paris

More than 90 people from 24 countries attended the Technical Committee’s last meeting in October 2007 in Paris. As usual, the discussions with National Committees and within the Technical Committee’s various Working Groups, Project Teams and ad hoc Working Groups were complex and oftentimes controversial. It was not always easy to reach consensus.

Diagram showing Technical Committee 111’s contributions on
environmental issues

The first of these new standards is "Determination of levels of six regulated substances", the draft of which was developed by Working Group 3. The Technical Committee approved unanimously a second draft of the proposed standard in December 2007.

This standard is strongly desired by the market because it will provide test methods that will allow industry to determine the levels of the six regulated substances (lead, mercury, cadmium and hexavalent chromium, and two kinds of brominated flame retardants) in electrotechnical products. The working group met again early in March 2008 to prepare the final draft and, at the same time, started to discuss how to maintain and improve the standard, future splitting into a family of standards, a possible expansion of measuring methods and a possible increase in the number of substances to be measured. I am quite sure that these methods will be in line with market demands.

The second of these new standards is "Environmentally conscious design". After tough discussions through seven meetings of Working Group 2, on 23rd March it was finally agreed to move this draft standard into the Technical Committee voting, CDV, stage. This draft standard uses the concept of "Life Cycle Thinking", which is important for all manufacturers to consider. We'd encourage Technical committees and subcommittees who develop environmentally-conscious design standards for products to refer to this standard. We hope that all National Committees will support the process as well.

The Technical Committee has other projects in the pipeline. They include the following:

• "Material declaration"
  Working group 1, which deals with material declaration for electrical and electronic equipment, is developing an international standard that would provide supply chains with a standardized data base of materials to be declared and a standardized method for the exchange of such data. The assortment of material declaration methods that are presently in use results in inefficiencies and higher costs. A harmonized method would be more efficient and less costly.
   
• "Guideline of compliance framework on regulations"
  Project Team 62476, which deals with guidance for assessing compliance of finished goods with respect to restrictions on the use of hazardous substances, is developing a framework to help manufacturers assess the conformity of their electrical and electronic products with regulations having to do with restricted substances.
   
• "Standardization of environmental aspects - Glossary of terms"
  Project Team 62542 is developing standard terms, definitions, abbreviations, and acronyms to be used in IEC standards and to serve as a glossary of terminology for environmental aspects of the IEC’s work. Currently there is some confusion on environmental terms, because they have been defined by Technical Committees and Subcommittees without coordination. This standard will assure harmonization and consistency.
   
• "Sample disjointment"
  Ad hoc Working Group 3 is working to develop a Publicly Available Specification that would provide the guidance needed for preparing samples that could be used for testing of the six regulated substances .The future specification could end up being a prerequisite for testing hazardous chemical substances.

The Technical Committee is also considering entering into recycling issues, which has become important to the electrotechnical industry. Ad hoc Working Group 4, which deals with recycling, reuse and recovery, met at the end of March 2008 to define its scope, outline a New Work Item Proposal, and consider related matters. I think that it will have to coordinate closely with the “Material declaration” and “Environmentally conscious design” projects, because effective recycling can be achieved only in close consideration of design.

The IEC is increasing its involvement in the areas of eco-design, energy efficiency, material efficiency and the reduction of hazardous chemicals. Technical Committee 111 is committed to providing solutions in these areas. Future topics may include "Reuse", "Recovery", "Emission", "Eco-efficiency", "Energy efficiency", "Resource efficiency" and others.

Related information:

TC 111 dashboard