Published 21/10/24
Environmental aspects of equipment design have been a requirement for many products since the introduction of legislations such as WEEE, ROHS and the Ecodesign Directive to name a few. The issue is that the legislations have been rather fragmented and focussing on specific areas only. PAS7700:2024 brings all the ecodesign measures together in a single standard to help manufacturers. Conformance Ltd can help manufacturers in implementing the requirements of this standard.
The UK Office for Product Safety and Standards (OPSS) has sponsored this standard, which will help provide manufacturers with guidance to reduce the environmental impact of consumer products. Typical product groups are household appliances, consumer electronics, gas boilers, heat pumps, leisure equipment, sports equipment and toys. This covers environmental issues and is additional to any legal compliance requirements such as safety and EMC. The standard calls up other relevant standards.
PAS7770:2024 introduces the principles of the product life cycle and how this should be considered in all phases in minimising the environmental impacts consistent with the product life stages. The typical life cycle stages to be considered are:
Design
Material sourcing and treatment
Production
Placing on the market
Transportation, distribution and storage
End of life
Product life cycle
Life Cycle Thinking is to be applied as early in the design process as possible. Manufacturers should have a suitable method to assess the environmental aspects.
Design
An approach as per BS EN IEC 62430 should be applied to the life cycle. There are requirements for both the manufacturer’s internal processes and the product. As part of the design considerations these issues should be considered.
Optimizing product life, hazardous substances, material resource efficiency, repairability, battery replacement, upgrading, maintenance, resource efficiency (in terms of materials used in production and also used during operation such as water and energy).
Materials sourcing and treatment
Materials from responsible sources only are to be used and must be suitable for the application, keeping the amount used to a minimum.
Production
This mainly concerns the use of Rare Earth Elements (REE).
Placing on the market
Products are to be suitably labelled with their environmental credentials. Any environmental claims should be able to be verified.
Transportation, distribution and storage
This mostly concerns transport at end of life and responsible disposal.
End of life
This looks at the end of life treatment of products taking the waste hierarchy into account. The disposal phase is closely related to the initial design phase. Good decisions at the design phase can contribute to appropriate disposal.