Greenpeace’s Guide to Greener Electronics & Life Cycle Assessment

Greenpeace recently published the 18th edition of its Guide to Greener Electronics, which evaluates leading consumer electronics companies based on their commitment and progress in three environmental criteria: Energy and Climate, Greener Products and Sustainable Operations.

It coincides with the publication of PE INTERNATIONAL’s whitepaper ‘Calculating the carbon footprint of electronic products,’ which presents an approach to quantify the environmental impacts of electronic products. Both publications aim to contribute to greener electronics.

The Guide to Greener Electronics by Greenpeace scores companies on overall policies and practices (not on specific products), aiming to provide consumers with a snapshot of the corporate sustainability of the biggest names in the industry.

PE INTERNATIONAL’s whitepaper, on the other hand, has its focus on providing the industry with a framework to quantify and reduce the environmental profile of products. Based on Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), it presents a methodology for calculating Product Carbon Footprints of electronic products. LCA is a widely-used approach which allows assessing a product’s environmental profile across its entire life-cycle, considering environmental impacts such as global warming potential and resource depletion, as well as other environmental aspects like energy consumption and material efficiency.


An LCA study can help to find out:
1) How a product is currently performing,
2) Where to focus potential improvements and how to measure them,
and 3) How to report product sustainability according to standards.

This framework helps companies to design better products, for example by discarding harmful materials and replacing them with more environmentally friendly ones, or replacing parts and materials which are difficult to recycle (Ecodesign). Besides, companies can use the LCA results to reliably communicate their products’ performance and improvements.

Download your free copy of our whitepaper ‘Calculating the carbon footprint of electronic products’

or contact PE’s Electronics Team: electronics@pe-international.com

Product Carbon Footprint Guide

With complex supply chains, extensive outsourcing, and frequent product revisions, the electronics industry has long believed that collecting supply chain emission information is prohibitively expensive. But as industry leaders are proving, creating a carbon footprint for any electronic device can be not just fast and cost-effective, but essential to a competing in tomorrow’s market.

Instead of near-sighted focus on regulation, product carbon footprinting helps create a sustainability strategy which can anticipate, rather than respond to, regulatory pressure. Leading companies like Siemens, AMD and Apple have adopted Life Cycle Assessment as the way to fully calculate and disclose the environmental impacts of their products.

PE INTERNATIONAL has 20 years of experience deploying software and services packages to support companies assess and manage product carbon footprints. With our SoFi Software for Scope 1 and 2 carbon footprint assessments, GaBi  Software and the electronics database for Scope 3 assessment, and an international team of experts on the environmental impacts of electronics, PE INTERNATIONAL provides a one-stop shop for managing sustainability programs in the electronic sector.

Learn how industry leaders are working with PE INTERNATIONAL to understand their supply chain carbon impacts!

Download Product Carbon Footprint Guide for electronic products

Update of the world-wide, unique electronics database, applicable for eco-design and the EuP Directive

Electronics is a field of continuous change and innovation. Products are available in numerous facets and shapes, using various electronic components and electric systems. A challenge for Life Cycle Assessment datasets – a challenge that PE INTERNATIONAL and LBP-GaBi (University of Stuttgart) have now met. The new electronics extension database is fully updating the existing version, known and implemented by our customers for many years.

The new electronics extension database facilitates modular modeling of almost any populated printed wiring board. It goes without saying that it also accounts for the requirements of WEEE, RoHS and EuP. You can choose from typical, average electronic components, characterised by name (e.g. SOT323), housing description (e.g. 0201, 1608 etc.), mass, size, pin number and lead free tag. You will also have access to various FR4 substrates, solder pastes (with lead and lead free), mechanical parts (such as shielding or connectors) and datasets for average assembly lines. Pre-defined exemplary models allow electronic boards to be modeled in a snap. In combination with our other databases, you can model and analyse entire electronic products conveniently and efficiently.

For those of you who want to delve into more detail, PE INTERNATIONAL also offers parametric models of semiconductors, TFT panels, connectors and other electronic components.

The new electronics database is also compatible with GaBi DfX, the software for compliance and sustainable product development.