October 1997, Volume 3, No. 10 Extended Product Responsibility Helps Sustain Production and Consumption

Buzzword Alert! Extended Product Responsibility (EPR) — a new environment-based manufacturing principle — has emerged as a way to ease the tensions polarizing manufacturers and regulations. EPR encourages manufacturers, suppliers and distributors to accept increased responsibility for all phases of a product's life cycle, beginning with extraction of raw materials, continuing through manufacture and distribution, and ending with the product's ultimate fate: recycling or disposal. Consumers can do their part by supporting product recycling programs and purchasing goods from environmentally responsible manufacturers. Through voluntary take-back programs, companies commit to recycling or reusing used equipment, parts, or packaging. For instance, Xerox Corp. dismantles used copier cartridges and cleans, sorts and repairs them to meet standards for new parts. Through this effort and other elements of Xerox' asset recycling management (ARM) program, the company saved more than $50 million in logistical, inventory and raw material costs in 1991 alone, the program's first year. Automakers Ford and Saturn have established take-back programs aimed at recycling automotive plastics from damaged or discarded cars. Under leasing agreements, a manufacturer accepts responsibility for maintaining a product during the term of the lease and then recycles the product at the end of its useful life. Interface Flooring Systems, for instance, offers consumers the option of leasing — rather than buying — its carpet products. Customers pay a monthly fee, and the company installs, maintains, and ultimately removes and recycles the carpeting once it's worn. Product stewardship, another EPR approach, involves promoting a product's safe use. The Chemical Manufacturers Association's Responsible Care Program, created in 1988, informs consumers of proper use of and risks associated with various chemicals. Though EPR lacks the drama of environmental initiatives that grow in response to such things as oil spills and other pollution releases, it boasts the potential for achieving significant long-term benefits. "EPR does not produce the kind of dramatic results that grab headlines, but it quietly builds a solid and sustainable infrastructure for meaningful environmental protection," explained Jack Barkenbus, executive director of the University of Tennessee's Energy, Environment and Resources Center (Knoxville, Tenn.). EPR has been endorsed by the President's Council on Sustainable Development, and both the council and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are looking to the University of Tennessee and other research centers for help in devising ways to implement the EPR principle in the United States. Sweden, Germany, and the Netherlands have mandated varying forms of EPR. Many EPR programs go beyond providing for environmental protection and offer significant cost savings for corporations through increased efficiency and reduced waste. "Any time you're discarding something there's a cost involved," said Catherine Wilt, senior research associate with UT's Waste Management Research and Education Institute. "When you can redesign a process or a product to remove that waste, you're reducing the cost, and that benefits to the company." Though EPR programs may offer long-term gains, they may initially increase, rather than reduce, manufacturing costs as production facilities retool and corporations evaluate the environmental profiles of suppliers and retailers up and down the supply chain. However, according to Gary Davis, director of UT's Center for Clean Products and Clean Technologies, forward-thinking corporations like Xerox that adopt EPR programs now, despite initial cost increases, will likely enhance competitiveness in the future. "U.S. companies that hope to compete both at home and abroad will implement EPR business strategies today," Davis said. "The ones that do will prosper in the 21st century; the ones that don't, won't."

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