The environmental impact of Electronic Products and Systems has been drawing increased public and regulatory awareness, including a rapid introduction of environmental legislation around the world.

ECD involves designing products with consideration for the environmental impact of specific environmental aspects. This may include characteristics of the finished product as well as environmental impacts from the product realization process.  

Full Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to consider cradle to grave environmental impacts such as raw material extraction, manufacturing, transportation, product use, and end-of-life management is still very complex.  Many producers are focusing their efforts on specific environmental aspects to address regulatory and customer requirements and market opportunities.

Common ECD elements:

• Elimination of hazardous substances (e.g. RoHS, REACH),
• End-of-life management (e.g. WEEE)
• Energy efficiency (e.g. Energy Star and EuP)
• Packaging and Batteries

ECD is gaining widespread adoption from the electronics industry and its supply base. This is to ensure compliance with regulatory and customer requirements and, in a growing number of cases, to proactively reduce the environmental footprint of their products and operations.