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For today’s manufacturers of electrical and electronic components, the RoHS and REACh requirements are the toughest environmental standards in the world.
RoHS, which stands for Restriction of Hazardous Substances, took effect in 2006 and calls for the elimination of six specific substances, plus four types of phthalates, that until a few years ago were commonly used in electrical equipment, such as circuit breakers and wiring devices.
REACh is the European Regulation on Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals and became effective in 2007. The regulation puts the responsibility squarely on industry to identify and guard against the risks posed by chemicals, some 14,000 of which are now registered in the REACh database. The regulation calls for the “progressive substitution” of 168 chemicals on a short but growing list of “substances of very high concern” (SVHC).
These standards require all manufacturers to carefully and thoroughly identify all materials going into their products and all chemicals being used in the manufacturing process to ensure compliance. Both regulations are legal mandates only with regard to products being made and sold in Europe, but Schneider Electric saw their adoption as an opportunity to develop solutions to help customers and end-users around the world move beyond simple compliance. Today all of our products and processes meet RoHS and REACh requirements, regardless of where they are being manufactured or supplied; no non-compliant versions are offered in other regions of the world. And that means that in the more than 100 countries where our products are used, everyone is benefitting as a result of RoHS and REACh.
We launched the Green Premium™ ecolabel program in 2012 to provide customers and end-users with an easy way to confirm the level of our products’ overall environmental compliance.
The program is designed to give transparent insight into the environmental impact of each product we make and gives customers and end users confidence in knowing they are using environmentally sound technology. The Green Premium label is awarded only to products that are documented as:
- Meeting RoHS requirements
- Complying with REACh regulations
- Having a comprehensive Product Environmental Profile (PEP)
- Including End-of-Life instructions (EoLi)
These requirements apply even to our legacy products and products that have come into the Schneider Electric line through acquisition, such as the APC and Square D product lines. As of early 2016, nearly three quarters of Schneider Electric’s offerings already were Green Premium products. Additional products earn the Green Premium label as their PEP and EoLi documentation is completed.
Knowing that Schneider Electric products meet environmental requirements is great, but here’s something even better: All the documents needed to back up the claim of environmental responsibility are instantly and freely available on the company’s Green Premium web portal through the “Check your product” option. Visitors can manually enter information about individual parts or upload an Excel file with multiple part numbers or classification descriptors.
Access to the environmental documentation for more than half a million products is simple, free, and fast. Anyone interested in determining a product’s Green Premium status or simply confirming RoHS and REACh compliance can do so quickly and conveniently online.
Specifiers and contractors charged with assembling the environmental compliance and integrity documentation for all types of projects – from machinery packages to building projects – are perhaps the most enthusiastic about the availability of this new tool. Complete, up-to-date, and easy-to-find documentation is available 24/7 from any location.
See for yourself – try “Check my product” today.
