This fall, our family got Digital TV from our local service provider. I’ll call them ‘Telco’ - those of you south of the border, feel free to substitute your local Comcast-like corporation. The promo deal sucked us in, our friendly installer managed to figure out how to wire both ends of a 1920’s apartment without stapling cable everywhere and now we can vegetate digitally. (Of course, the first thing I did with this marvel of new technology was use the PVR to record a Space Channel marathon of 30-year-old Star Trek episodes.)

But even as the system was being assembled in our home, I wondered about its footprint. In order to decode and deliver the signals for digital TV and broadband Internet, we took delivery of: two set top boxes, a PVR, a wireless router, a network router and a switcher.

I wondered, how much power do they use? Are all the electronics compliant with RoHS? (the Restriction of Hazardous Substances Directive or RoHS adopted in 2003 by the EU that restricts the use of hazardous materials in electronics) What happens to these units when they needs to be replaced? And what happens to the leftover boxes, plastic and Styrofoam after installation?

You’ve just developed your eco-champion product and have set out to know everything about it. You’ve performed a full-fledged lifecycle analysis (LCA) – with all the bells and whistles – and have some vital results: the methodology report that describes your product, and the interpretation report, which explains the results.

You are all excited about the results. You feel the need to express yourself publicly. What better way to do that than in a comparison to other products? And the great game begins…

The Rules
Most games begin with the creation of rules. The ‘game’ of marketing sustainability is no different.

Is it fair to compare your sustainable product to someone else’s and not invite their input? Not really. In fact, ISO standards require that you involve relevant stakeholders to foster a positive conversation about the approach and the interpretation. One way to do that is for you and all stakeholders to sit together and write up a methodology report.

It's been a long time in the works. We've been fortunate to develop our extensive and knowledgeable alpha and beta communities, and now very excited that the official release is out and available to everyone.

When organizations want to improve their triple bottom line¹ they usually start with the internal processes. It seems to fit the direct-responsibility focus that makes good managers most successful. Internal processes are within reach, and most easily grasped. Looking at it from a life cycle perspective, the indirect responsibility usually comes later, if at all. However, for some sustainable design solutions the critical area lies in the indirect upstream responsibility.

Indirect responsibility For a lot of products, a major source of environmental and social impact lies in the materials and energy that are purchased. Think about a product made of steel. A whole industry exists whose sole purpose is to roll-form steel into shapes that we need. Their contribution to the overall impact of the steel industry is limited to directly-quantifiable losses (material efficiency) and logistics (transportation efficiency).