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Environmental stewardship is one of Emerson's key corporate policies. Our commitment to a clean environment starts by complying fully with the laws and regulations of the countries in which we operate; our commitment continues by making progress in reducing and eliminating wastes and hazardous materials, and in conserving our natural resources.
Emerson Energy Systems is guided by a belief that all corporations have a responsibility to the environment. This belief is reflected in our commitment to avoid creating unacceptable risks to the environment. This commitment is an integral part of Emerson Energy Systems management system, and benefits customers, employees and owners, as well as the communities in which we operate.
We strive to involve our employees, suppliers and customers in our environmental design efforts. This gives us a better opportunity to influence the direction of the environmental efforts of our industry sector, and to act early on new market demands.
Our employees have attended courses in basic environmental knowledge. Designers, purchasers, project and product managers are more knowledgeable about designs and products that are safe for the environment.
We strive to integrate environmental issues into our existing Management System, since these issues are an important factor in our business.
Initially we have found it to be valuable to certify development and factory sites, and have plans to certify sales offices in the future.
Today we have certified Environmental Management Systems at our product development facilities at our headquarters in Stockholm, and at our factories in Sweden and China. Our other factories will be certified in the near future.
The most prominent environmental aspect of our business is the use of energy. Energy is created and utilized when our products are produced, transported, and used by our customers.
When energy is used it creates carbon dioxide (C02) emissions. These emissions have been shown to contribute to the advancement of global warming. The burning of fossil fuels in the power and transportation industries has been the principal cause for C02 emissions.
Several of our products support our customers in minimizing the energy consumption in their telecom applications. For example, when designing rectifiers, a key criteria is to minimize the energy consumption by increasing the efficiency.
Our system for material declarations provides designers with information regarding the content of hazardous substances in components. Material declarations therefore support designers to take environmental performance into consideration through the choice of components.
We offer a range of solar plants ranging from tenths to hundreds of watts in average consumption. Our solar systems are derived from best industry practice to match telecom requirements. By choosing solar plants as power back up, the customer reduces the environmental impact as compared to using diesel back up.
Our energy management system, Emerson EnergyMaster™, can also provide the customer with energy savings by helping our customers to save time on the day-to-day maintenance of their sites. It also extends the lifetime of the energy products.
Environmental responsibility is a vital part of Emerson Energy Systems design processes.
Our Environmental Management Systems supports environmentally conscious design, which is based on the requirement specification concerning design for the environment.
The requirement for design for the environment covers energy consumption, toxic substances and materials, disassembly, product life cycle, weight reduction, marking, packaging and supplier requirements.
Emerson Energy Systems has it's own directive regarding banned and restricted substances. The directive identifies those materials and substances that are generally banned or restricted in Emerson Energy Systems products and operations.
Currently two pre-studies are being implemented; Lead-free soldering and Substitution of halogenated flame-retardants.
Lead-free soldering: This area concerns toxicity and health hazards. A pre-study has been started on an implementation project for lead-free soldering. The alternative currently being analyzed is an alloy of tin, silver and copper instead of lead. The pre-study will be completed during
2003.
The substitution of halogenated flame-retardants is another challenging goal that Emerson Energy Systems is working towards. This substitution will eliminate brominated organic flame-retardants from our products. Since these substances are believed to be a serious ecological treat, we consider it important enough to replace them.
During 2003 we will substitute fasteners with surface treatment of hexavalent chromium to Cr VI-free alternatives.
In our environmental work we consider our products environmental aspects throughout the entire life cycle and therefore expect the same from our suppliers. An objective for Emerson Energy Systems is to improve the environmental performance of our suppliers.
The size, geographical spread and our continuing expansion makes great demands on the way we manage our transportation needs in order to reduce the environmental impact.
The environment is dependent upon transport, which uses the smallest possible amount of natural resources and produces the least amount of emissions.
Our transportation partners are all ISO 14001 certified.
We concentrate on some few important measures, for example:
· We optimize our transports by loading as full as possible.
· We want to decrease the percentage of airfreight and increase the percentage of road transports.
By measuring and monitoring the environmental impact of our transport activities, we are able to improve the systems we use to assess the environmental work of the freight companies we work with.
· We ship directly from sub supplier to customer when feasible, which reduces the transport distance.
In order to successfully develop products with environmentally conscious design we set environmental requirements on our suppliers. Currently we have approximately 300 preferred suppliers in 25 countries.
We are working towards the goal of having all of our suppliers complying with ISO 14001 and with Emerson Energy Systems Banned & Restricted List, as well as being able to declare material content of their products.
Partner suppliers, who are designing parts of our products, should furthermore implement design for the environment with particular consideration to our guidelines for environmental conscious
design.
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