environmental communication within the electronics industry. According to one of the speakers, Johan Widheden from the Swedish research institute IVF, the introduction of environmentally friendly eco design has clear commercial advantages.
"Even so, eco design is not widely used in industry today," he told the conference delegates.
Johan Widheden has studied eleven electronics companies which have benefited financially from switching to eco design. Although the main advantage is cost reductions due to reduced consumption of power, raw materials and process chemicals, many companies also reported benefits for instance in the form of better products and lower administrative costs. The British PCB manufacturer Crawford, Hansford & Kimber and the American interconnect specialist AMP were among the companies included in Johan Widheden's study.
The conference gathered an impressive group of prominent speakers, and they all agreed that green issues are now high on the agenda of larger corporations. However, many speakers called for improvements to be made to assist smaller and medium-sized companies to adopt environmentally friendly methods.
Gittan Cedervall