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Acer: Sustainability and environmental projects
In terms of sales, Acer is currently the second biggest computer manufacturer in the world after Hewlett-Packard. As a PC vendor, the company is third in the world’s global market, trailing behind HP and Dell after taking the number three spot from its Chinese competitor, Lenovo. It was able to do this with its acquisition of Gateway, Inc. This acquisition bolstered the Taiwanese company’s foothold on the United States market.
As with other multinational companies that have joined the green movement, Acer has brought up several initiatives to make its operations sustainable and eco-friendly. J.T. Wang, the company’s Chief Executive Officer says that the global operations of the company, which spans Africa, Europe, Greater China, the Americas, Middle East, and the Asia Pacific are “devoted to:
• Ensuring that our products and operations meet all applicable environmental regulatory requirements.
• Selecting technologies that minimize harmful, non-environmentally sensitive materials; conserve energy; and are recyclable.
• Saving energies, preventing pollution, minimizing and recycling discards in our daily operations.
• Promoting awareness of our environmental policy among employees and partners in our supply chain.
• Building an Environmental Management System (EMS) to continually monitor and improve activities.”
Acer has kept sustainability in mind with its production and operations so that they do not degrade resources that provide the rudimentary components that make that same process feasible.
One of their efforts is the innovation of energy-efficient products. The Taiwanese electronics manufacturer has recognized that an increased power consumption results into emission of greater amounts of greenhouse gases, which in turn contributes greatly to accelerating global warming. In this light, ever since the year 2000, Acer has gone to great lengths to produce Information Technology products that follow Energy Star requirements (Energy Star is a program created by the United States government to promote energy-efficient products.); its laptops now have a relatively negligible power consumption of 1 and 2 watts in power-off mode and sleep mode respectively.
Acer also has imposed restrictions on itself to eliminate/reduce the use of substances that pose hazards on the environment and human health. The European Union Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) Directive has deemed the following substances to be hazardous:
• Lead (Pb)
• Cadmium (Cd)
• Mercury (Hg)
• Hexavalent Chromium (Cr6+)
• Polybrominated Biphenyl Ethers (PBB) and
• Polybrominated Diphenylethers (PBDE)
Of these, four have been banned by Acer in their production lines, namely Hexavalent Chromium, Polybrominated Biphenyl Ethers, Polybrominated Diphenylethers, and Cadmium. The rest (Lead, Mercury, and non-regulated halogenated flame-retardants) are restricted. Acer also has provided a list of restricted and banned substances to its suppliers; this ensures that even at the most rudimentary levels, Acer products are already free from hazardous substances.
Acer has been actively pursuing lead-free product designs. It has planned to release lead-free products as early as 2006. Furthermore, it has taken the initiative to follow the majority of the Industrial Technology industry in banning the use of several dangerous substances including:
• Polychlorinated Naphthalenes (PCN)
• Chlorinated Paraffin (CP) (C10~C13)
• Chlorofluorocarbons/Hydrogenated Chlorofluorocarbons (CFC/HCFC)
• Organic tin compounds
• Formaldehyde
• Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC)
• Azo compounds
• Asbestos
• Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCB)
In 1997, the Bureau Veritas Quality International (BVQI) awarded Acer with the ISO 14001, an international specification for an environmental management system (EMS). However, the company re-established its EMS after its separation of its branded business from its manufacturing unit in 2002 and renewed the ISO 14001 certification the year after. Furthermore, 99% of Acer’s suppliers are ISO 4001 compliant.
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