product environment performance
Samsung Electronics makes an effort to develop environment-friendly product that minimizing an impact to environment through whole process from getting raw materials, production, transportation, usage and end-of-life disposal by adding 'environment' on function, price, quality, design that were the essence for product development.
For this process, we takes a responsibility for whole process through LCA and recycle evaluation and by operating recycling center for dealing with an efficient treatment of the waste product.
- policy & principle
- regional compliance
- voluntary programs
- recycling statistics
- recycling in Korea
- how to recycle Samsung products
policy & principle
As a top tier brand, Samsung is naturally looking at ways to build sustainable practices into our daily business thinking. Our CEO/Vice chairman has repeatedly encouraged the company to respond to environmental and social challenges to secure a profitable future.
Samsung Electronics supports the concept of Individual Producer Responsibility (IPR), and understands that this is the critical mechanism that will incentivise manufacturers to make better products, and dramatically reduce the level of WEEE arising at traditional waste disposal options such as landfill and incineration.
However, understanding the necessity and benefits of something does not mean that achieving it is easy. Samsung Electronics has been engaged at the highest levels of industry and government discussions on whether IPR is attainable, and if so, how. Yet still, even the most pro-active companies with mature voluntary internal take-back schemes and years of experience, cannot produce workable proposals that are feasible for all producers and governments, financially, logistically or environmentally.
We believe several challenges must first be overcome in order to make true IPR possible and effective, and we will continue to push for these changes.
- Firstly, the ability to correctly identify the legal "Producer" of collected WEEE, so that financial responsibility can be assigned. Current technology may allow products to be digitally marked with "Producer" details, but much development is still needed to bring technologies like RFID up to a point where tags are durable enough to survive for the lifetime of the product and still retain their data.
- in parallel, standardization work is needed to agree on a common format for the data to be held by such RFID tags, and equipping Europe's network of collection points and recyclers with the same reading equipment connected to a central database.
- Also, currently little incentive is given under Regional or National WEEE laws for a Producer to voluntarily implement an IPR model for all products. Differentiation should be made for Producers choosing to do more than the legally required minimum.
- internal organization. Without a direct financial link between a given product design and the costs of EOL management, IPR will not cause the necessary step-changes in Design and manufacturing to reduce recycling costs or drive better efficiency and innovation in take-back schemes.
- Changing their behavior in disposing of wastes, and also contributing financially to those who must deal with their waste.
