ABB has obtained independently verified environmental declarations for all of its main product lines after pioneering environmentally conscious design more than a decade ago.
The Environmental Product Declarations analyze the impact of ABB products on the environment over their entire lifespan, taking into account the resources and materials used in production and their energy efficiency when in operation.
The declarations provide customers with objective data that's verified by a third party and facilitate the comparison of environmental performance of alternative products.
The practice is enshrined in ABB's environmental policy, which includes a commitment to develop manufacturing processes "with a focus on energy and resource efficiency" and to "develop and market products and systems which are resource efficient and facilitate use of renewable energy sources."
Environmental management program
ABB started its formal environmental management program after signing the International Chamber of Commerce's Business Charter for Sustainable Development in 1991. The first phase included an audit of manufacturing processes to establish what impact ABB was having on the environment.
ABB also teamed up with other industries and scientists at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden, to develop ways of studying the environmental impact of products over their lifespan, known as life cycle assessment (LCA) methods.
In phase two, environmental management systems were formally implemented from 1994 and are now in place at about 98 percent of facilities. Since 1998, ABB has been focusing on the environmental performance of the product over its life cycle to complete LCA-based product declarations for the main products in all business areas.
The Environmental Product Declaration is a specification recognized by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and overseen by the Swedish Environmental Management Council. Specific requirements are identified for product groups or service types to make sure the collection and calculation of data is done in a consistent manner.
Checklist
A declaration may include information about raw material acquisition, energy use and efficiency, content of materials and chemical substances, pollutant emissions to air, soil and water, waste generation and the environmental impact associated with the product of service in question.
Product developers at ABB have a checklist of steps they must take, one of which is to answer the question: Is it possible to improve energy efficiency during product operation? This is the key step, as it is during operation that most energy is lost.
A motor loses about nine percent of the energy used to run it, generating more than 900 times as much carbon dioxide over 25 years of operation than during its production.
| One example of ABB's environmentally friendly products is a new line of low-voltage circuit breakers called TMAX (pictured left). Circuit breakers make and break load currents in electricity networks and interrupt short circuit currents if there are faults in the system. The TMAX circuit breakers reduce the amount of carbon dioxide emitted while in operation, require less steel and copper to make and produce less waste. |