Podcast: Product Stewardship in the Real World with Jeff Omelchuck and Wayne Rifer

Product Stewardship in the Real World: Why the new EPEAT standard for electronics has been so successful

Interviewees: Jeff Omelchuck, Wayne Rifer

Interviewed by: Darcy Hitchcock

Excerpt:

Hitchcock: EPEAT and GEC are potentially a model for other industries to do something similar. So what are your top three tips for someone else trying to follow this approach to product stewardship?

Rifer: The most important thing you have to do first is to understand the dynamics of the industry. How does the business model work and what is the nature of their products? What are the environmental impacts? What is their relationship with regulatory bodies? All of this points to whether they’d be interested in pursuing a process like this, who would need to be involved, and what approach would be most useful. There isn’t a single right answer here, but these questions should guide you to the right answers for that industry.

Second, the empowerment of stakeholders is key. Most eco-labels are built by an organization. Sometimes it’s a governmental agency; the German government created Blue Angel and the US government created Energy Star and defined Organic. In other cases, it’s been a private, usually an NGO organization like the Forest Stewardship Council or the Food Alliance. While they may solicit input from the stakeholders, they make the decisions themselves. But with the EPEAT process, we empowered the stakeholders to figure it out. And I do recommend that approach. It gained EPEAT credibility.

To hear the whole interview and read the transcript, visit the Learning Center.

About the Interviewees

Jeff Omelchuck, GEC Director and EPEAT Program Manager—Jeff is the Director of the Green Electronics Council. He has extensive experience as the Managing Principal of International Quality Associates, Inc., a private consultancy helping clients design, implement, and improve formal management systems and achieve registration to ISO 9001, ISO 14001, and similar standards. Through IQA he has filled interim executive management positions and managed dozens of complex projects, often in the electronics industry. Jeff is an RABQSA certified Lead Auditor and Skill Examiner and conducts certification audits for two internationally accredited registrars. Prior to founding IQA, Jeff spent the first 10 years of his career in the electronics industry in positions generally spanning product development and manufacturing operations in the Silicon Valley and then the Silicon Forest of Oregon. Jeff received an MS in Management Science and Engineering from Stanford University and a BS in Industrial Engineering from Montana State.

Wayne Rifer, EPEAT Program - Stakeholder Processes Manager—Wayne has provided environmental consulting to public and private sector clients for over 25 years with a focus on integrated waste management. In 2000 he was one of the early initiators of product stewardship in the electronics sector with a focus on multi-stakeholder solution-oriented processes. Under an EPA grant he managed the Western Electronic Product Stewardship Initiative (WEPSI), a regional stakeholder dialogue, that had two major objectives: 1) to address the need to establish recycling programs for electronic products at the end of their useful life and 2) to promote improved environmental design through market-place incentives. The first objective resulted in Wayne’s participant as a negotiator in the National Electronic Product Stewardship Initiative (NEPSI), a stakeholder negotiation that sought to develop a national system for the management of end-of-life electronics. Following the closure of NEPSI, he has continued to work with industry to find solutions to this as-yet unsolved challenge on the state level. The second objective resulted in the initiation of the project to develop the Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT). Wayne served as the project manager of EPEAT through the multi-stakeholder development and implementation process, and is now a member of the GEC team.