NEC Display Solutions is pushing its environmental credentials under the banner of its Green Vision Campaign. The company said the campaign would consolidate its environmental commitments into single message.
According to a study by market research institute Gartner, commercial IT is responsible for two per cent of the world’s CO2 emissions, which is around the same volume as global air travel. In Europe, around 25 per cent of electronic waste is currently recycled, which will increase as legal regulations are increasingly implemented. In view of the large quantities of generated waste material, manufacturers have a responsibility to make recycling as easy as possible. Therefore claims to base its Green Vision campaign on two pillars: Green Productivity and Green Sustainability.
Green Productivity covers the company’s commitment to more efficiency with less consumption, which it claims is based on the use of reliable, leading edge technology. The company says this has the added benefits of long service life with subsequent life-cycle cost-effectiveness of the equipment. NEC pinpoints its recently unveiled standard and short-throw projectors, which exhibit a lamp life of up to 1,000 hours more than their predecessor models.
Technical developments also allow the reduction in the demand for energy. NEC hihglights, by way of example, the development of its MultiSync EA display series, in which the number of CCFL backlights per screen has been halved on the MultiSync EA221WMe from four to two. Additionally the MultiSync EA222WMe, which is set to come onto the market at the end of this year, will be the first NEC monitor with white LED backlights which use up to 50 per cent less energy than conventional backlights.
NEC says more and more of its products will come equipped with eco-features as standard. These include an Ambient Light Sensor, which measures ambient light levels and automatically adjusts the screen brightness. An Eco Mode gives the user the option of operating the equipment with reduced power consumption. A Carbon Savings Meter calculates and totals the quantity of CO2 saved by operating the desktop display, large format display or projector in Eco Mode. CO2 is the simplest measure of environmental impact. In the supplied manual, NEC provides information about the quantity of emitted CO2 of the particular product in production and operation. At the same time, for desktop monitors, compliance with the latest environmental standards such as TCO 5.0, Energy Star 5.0 or EPEAT is documented.
NEC also says under its Green Sustainability commitment to responsible innovation and production it will look at materials management as well as packaging and transport. The use of environmentally hazardous substances such as heavy metals and carcinogens is increasingly banned in the manufacture of products. More bio-plastics, along with recycled metal and plastic, are being used. By reducing packaging sizes and weights through the removal of the stand feet (it becomes an option) on public displays or creating narrower display designs, packaging materials can be saved and transport efficiency improved. The increasing use of completely recyclable packaging materials will also relieve the burden on the environment.
"Information technology is an essential part of our society," said Bernd Eberhardt, managing director Europe at NEC Display Solutions. "As a manufacturer, we take our responsibility towards the environment very seriously. We’ve set ourselves the goal of taking a leading role on the road to an information society in which the needs of people combine with those of their environment."