IT Industry Introduces New Carbon Measurement Methodology

The Electronic Industry Citizenship Coalition (EICC) and MIT are launching a new method of measuring the embedded carbon in electronic products, writes Degher, manager of the Worldwide LCA and Conflict Minerals Program at Hewlett-Packard. Until now, she says, the life cycle data available to help customers assess the carbon footprint of their IT purchases has been “highly variable,” most notably because a large share of that carbon is emitted during manufacture and transport. The new approach uses “standardized, product-specific allocation methods that link facility-wide carbon data to the specific product types manufactured within that facility.”