EcoFly helps designers with eco-benchmark

Designers and manufacturers will have a new tool to benchmark the eco-performance of their products and comply with upcoming EU directives.

The European Commission’s Framework Directive on Energy Using Products (EUP) is due to appear in early 2009 and will set minimum eco-design standards for a range of parameters over the entire lifecycle of the product.

The legislation will cover design through to manufacturing, use and disposal. This includes energy consumption, water use, air emissions and waste embedded in the product, produced by the product and consumed during use.

EcoFly, created by WSP Environment and Energy, claims to be the first commercial tool to help designers, compliance and environmental managers benchmark the eco-performance of their products and confirm compliance with the EC directive.

David Symons, director of corporate services at WSP Environment & Energy, said:

“The EuP will have wide ranging impacts and manufacturers should be integrating the EuP into design teams today.  With the standards progressively coming into force next year, design teams need to understand the proposed minimum standards for their products today.”

Ecofly has examined a range of products and has found a number of surprising results:

• A typical 29inch CRT TV will use more than 62,000 litres of water over its entire life cycle and will generate 83kg of waste.

• A desktop PC will generate over 47kg of waste and will generate 38,000 litres of water.

• A mobile phone charger will emit the equivalent of almost 6kg of CO2 over its life.

• The energy used to make a laptop is about the same as the energy used over its life with 1,571 MJ consumed during use and 2,902 MJ consumed throughout its entire life cycle.