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Product stewardship means that whoever designs, makes, sells or uses a product takes responsibility for minimizing its environmental impact.

This responsibility spans the product's life cycle - from selection of raw materials, to design and production processes, to its use and disposal.
Product stewardship addresses the environmental impact of a product at all stages of its life cycle, from design and manufacturing, to packaging and distribution, to end-of-life management.

It shifts the responsibility for end-of-life management from the public sector (government and taxpayers) alone, to a shared responsibility that includes the private sector (manufacturers and purchasers).

The goal the Product Stewardship Program is to encourage environmentally friendly design and recycling, and to reduce flow to the landfills.

It may also be called Extended Product Responsibility, Extended Producer Responsibility, or EPR.

How does it work?

Product stewardship is reducing a product's environmental footprint at each step up and down the stream.

• Life-Cycle Assessment - Toting up a product's true costs
• Design for Environment - Removing waste from the beginning
• Green Purchasing - Environmental criteria for buying
• Servicing - Selling services instead of stuff
• Takeback - Diverting waste from landfill

What is a life cycle perspective?

The life of a product and its packaging starts with the conceptual design, extends through manufacture, sale, use and reuse/recycling, and finishes with disposal and all impacts from the product and its packaging after disposal. In order to understand all the impacts a product has during its lifetime one needs to consider energy and materials consumption, air and water emissions, the amount of toxins in the product, worker and user safety and waste disposal issues. Questions to consider include the following:

• How much energy does it take to extract the raw materials?
  
• How much energy is needed to transport the raw materials to the manufacturing site?
  
• How about the energy needed to transport the final product to its point of sale?
  
• How much energy goes into producing and transporting the chemicals and materials that are used to manufacture the product in question?
  
• Are non-renewable materials being used?
  
• Is the product being manufactured from recycled materials?
  
• What kinds of emissions enter the environment during the production of the product and during production of the parts and chemicals used to manufacture the product?
  
• What toxic materials are in the product, or are used to make the product?
  
• What risk does the product or its manufacture present to the production workers and to the end-user?
  
• How much waste is created during the production process?
  
• Can the product or its packaging be made with less material?
  
• How much energy is needed to operate the product?
  
• Can the product be repaired or upgraded if necessary, hence extending its life?
  
• Are there recycling options available for the user?
  
• What are the recovery options?
  
• Is the product designed to facilitate materials reuse at the end of its life?
  
• What natural capital services are being compromised by all of these impacts?
  

Design for Environment (DfE)

Design for Environment is a process by which firms design products and processes in an environmentally conscious way across the entire product life cycle. One tactic being used is to reevaluate what the company actually provides. Some have changed their focus to the services their products offer. Rather than selling the actual physical product, they are striving to design and deliver the services in the least resource-intensive and ecologically damaging manner, taking account of life-cycle impacts. With DfE both pollution and waste are considered to be avoidable inefficiencies. Designers will evaluate such questions as:

• Can the product life be extended?
• Can recycled material be incorporated in the product manufacture?
  
• Can the number of polymer types be reduced? Are the polymers labeled?
  
• Can a product be easily taken apart at the end of its useful life?
  
• Can more environmentally benign materials substitute for ones with greater risk?
  

Environmentally Preferable Purchasing (EPP)

A consumer can make choices to purchase environmentally preferable products. This includes consideration of all the questions listed in "Life Cycle Perspective", above. Look for products with recycled content, and products that can be recycled themselves at the end of their life. Does the manufacturer have a "Take-back" program? Choose products that are expected to have a longer life. Choose products with less packaging. Look for guides to environmentally preferable purchasing. Businesses and governments that make very large purchases can especially help to drive the product stewardship principles by developing procurement guidelines.

Servicing

Another tool for reducing product life-cycle impacts is "servicizing". Servicizing is selling the function of a product rather than the product itself.

Selling the function of a product rather than the product itself requires that one redefine its business, from selling products to selling solutions or the benefits of those products. What opportunities exist for you to sell "convenient transportation", "great looking backyards," or "cleaner, safer homes?"

"Take Back"

Product takeback requires manufacturers, instead of customers, to be responsible for collecting and recycling end-of-life products.

Product takeback requires an integrated approach to product design, reverse logistics, product recovery, and re-marketing. These design changes generally result in higher initial manufacturing costs, but reduce costs at end of life.

Reuse and re-manufacturing are generally economically more attractive than materials recycling. Reverse logistics in the context of takeback (collection, storage, and transportation of end-of-life products from the point of return to the point of product recovery and disposal) has not yet been well documented. .

Links

Overview of Product Stewardship

Product Stewardship Program Review

Recycling Regulation - Adding New Products

Extended Producer Responsibility & Stewardship

Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development

Western Electronic Product Stewardship Initiative

Product Stewardship: Considering the Afterlife

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