Estimation of the carbon footprint for telecommunications and electronics products has become a key design activity. Improvement in carbon footprint must be demonstrated consistently on all new products. Current methods of providing a useful estimate are laborious and time-consuming. A simplified approach is described, which uses basic statistical methods for estimation and promises significant improvements over existing methods. [DOI: 10.1115/1.4002143]

As the information and communications technology (ICT) industry continues to implement practices to improve the reliability, environmental performance and total cost of goods sold (COGS) of its products and services, extending one's view beyond the product itself can offer additional, and at times significant, opportunities. This paper will provide an analysis that shows the impact that product packaging (used for shipment and storage) can have on overall reliability and environmental performance. We show that optimized product packaging can contribute to an increase in reliability due to improved electrostatic discharge (ESD) and corrosion protection, as well as a 40-fold reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The analysis will include the environmental benefits in terms of GHG emissions throughout the lifecycle of alternative storage bags, from the product design and raw material extraction phase through end-of-life activities. This work demonstrates that by using a synergistic approach for the primary packaging of products, improvements in the critical trio of reliability, environment, and COGS can be achieved. © 2010 Alcatel-Lucent.

The telecom industry is moving towards a “greener” supply chain for manufacturing. As part of this greening, more emphasis is being placed on logistics management, remanufacturing and recycling of e-waste. There has been much publicity concerning the environmental benefits of remanufacturing electronic equipment and reselling it to customers in lieu of manufacturing new like-kind equipment. This paper will provide an assessment of the environmental benefits associated with remanufacturing network telecommunications equipment by employing lifecycle assessment (LCA) methodology and commercially available LCA software / database information on these products. The results will demonstrate the significant environmental benefits of remanufacturing network telecommunications equipment as an “eco-sustainable” alternative to manufacturing new equipment.