Newly published IPC guide to environmental megatrends steers companies through environmental regulations and issues

Article Type: Industry news From: Circuit World, Volume 34, Issue 4

The IPC – Association Connecting Electronics Industries^®– has produced an Executive’s Guide to Environmental Megatrends that will shape the future of the electronics industry, a new study to help executives in the electronics industry steer their companies through the increasingly costly and complex landscape of worldwide environmental requirements. IPC’s new 67-page report helps companies position themselves for compliance and meet their customers’ future needs.

The focus of the report centres on three major environmental trends:restriction of substances, energy efficiency and end-of-life recycling. Each of these three trends can necessitate design changes driven by the need to comply. However, compliance with requirements arising from one trend may negatively affect compliance with others.

The report details existing and pending regulations affecting the electronics industry and provides complete explanations and implications of each. Numerous tables and charts are included that clearly outline important information. For example, an overview of major product-related environmental requirements for Europe, the USA, China, and the rest of the world, is provided in one chart. Another helpful table lists the main impacts of the three main megatrends on OEMs, EMS providers, PCB assemblers, material suppliers, and PCB production equipment manufacturers.

According to the study’s author, Dr Paul Goodman, senior materials consultant, ERA technology, the industry will continue to be affected by legislation that restricts substances, imposes energy reduction obligations and requires recycling at end of life. There will be both commercial implications and technological challenges. Each part of the electronics industry will be affected, to some extent, by each trend. By enhancing industry leaders’understanding of environmental issues, it is hoped that this report will help them to become more proactive in ensuring that environmental legislation is reasonable and can be implemented.

The Guide to Environmental Megatrends was commissioned by IPC’s Executive Market and Technology Forum and developed by ERA Technology Ltd, an environmental consultancy in the UK with expertise in the electronics industry. Members of IPC’s Executive Market and Technology Forum can access the guide online in the Executive Forum members-only web site. Others may purchase it through the IPC online bookstore at www.ipc.org/onlinestore