Environmental quality in the supply line: a new approach

This paper presents a view of how the supply line of an Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) may merge with moves to reduce the environmental load of a telecommunication product during its life cycle. Governments, legislation, customers and corporate goals are the main driving forces behind such a merger. Customers take action by issuing environmental statements. Such statements confirm that the environmental quality of a product depends on the environmental quality of the suppliers' electronic, mechanical and optical components. This leads to a new approach: environmental quality in the supply line or environmental supply line engineering. Environmental supply line engineering is positioned in the product realization processes and primarily includes interventions in the supply-base and in product use and dismantling. The aim of environmental supply line engineering is to develop environmental performance tools to measure the environmental performance of suppliers, technologies and components. Environmental performance is related to the concepts of waste, emissions, energy use, material use, environmental design practices, environmental load and product life cycle. All these concepts are defined with respect to environmental quality of the supply line.