Short version of tender - Organizational Part

The following is a short version of submission of tender by Fraunhofer IZM (which is the basis for the project) of promoting Eco-design Activities in the SMEs of the Electrical/Electronics Sector. Aim is to give the reader an overview about tasks, organization, structure, facts, partners and intention of the project. The content may vary from upcoming activities but illustrates the overall purpose.

Preamble

The trend towards eco-design (or: Design for Environment) gained momentum in the 1990s in parallel with development of Life Cycle Analysis approaches. By now, it is a strategy followed by companies voluntarily as they see marketing benefits, cost reductions, or they are pushed by their business-to-business customers to develop appropriate strategies. Thus, eco-design is a topic for large OEMs mainly, which care about publicity to a larger extend than the supply chain. For almost all small and medium-sized enterprises eco-design is no topic at all, as they lack the financial and manpower resources as well as the know-how to develop and implement the appropriate strategies.

However, the development of European legislation on electronics and the environment as well as the resulting pressure that large enterprises put on their supply chains requires the awareness of SMEs about the possibilities and the benefits they can earn by the application of eco-design methods. The contents and consequences of the related European legislation must be made transparent to avoid frictions in implementation, as they already occur with the RoHS-Directive.

Description of tasks

The target sectors of this project are

Electrical equipment

• Electro-domestic appliances (NACE 29.7)
• Electric motors, generators and transformers (NACE 31.1)
• Electricity distribution and control apparatus (NACE 31.2)
• Cables (NACE 31.3)
• Batteries and accumulators (NACE 31.4)
• Lighting equipment and electric lamps (NACE 31.5)
• Other electrical equipment (NACE 31.6)
• Electro-medical equipment (NACE 33.1)
• Measuring, precision and control instruments (NACE 33.2)
• Industrial process control equipment (NACE 33.3)

Electronic equipment
• Office machinery and computers (NACE 30)
• Electronic components (NACE 32.1)
• Telecommunications (NACE 32.2)
• Consumer electronics (NACE 32.3)

The automotive sector suppliers are included in the considerations and in the target group even though not affected directly by the related European legislation at present time.

Organisation of Workshops

Foreign language skills among SMEs are missing frequently. In some regions English (Scandinavia, The Netherlands) or German (Eastern Europe) is partly accepted as working language, but workshops targeting at SMEs have to be hold in the country's language preferably to reach the targeted audience. Therefore regional partners as subcontractors will act as hosts, contributor, moderator, evaluator of regional workshops.

Fraunhofer IZM submits this bid together with a consortium of 17 subcontracting partners. Major benefits of this project consortium are as follows:

• Pooling of an extensive amount of expertise in the field of eco-design (specifically for the electronics sector) and electronics technology throughout Europe, as well as didactical experience and regional language and cultural expertise.
• Where no in depth eco-design expertise is provided by a partner within this project, education of these institutions is performed accordingly as a side effect of this project. Thus, eco-design expertise afterwards will be available in all regions of Europe.
• National networks can support efficiently the awareness-raising campaign.
• SMEs will have local partners, which can work as contact points on eco-design issues, having a large pan-European network at their disposal.

Workshop Concept

The workshop concept bases on three stages:

Train-the-trainer-workshop

Once the basic workshop material is compiled a train-the-trainer-workshop will be hold to educate the regional subcontractors. Also common strategies for the didactic concept will be discussed. This will guarantee a high quality of the SME workshops hosted by the subcontractors in national language. Furthermore, networking of the subcontractors will be strengthened as a basis for logistics and know-how support. This workshop will be open also to other participants, who plan to organise own workshops at their own expense outside the frame of this bid or who want to consult their SMEs in this sense. As non-subcontractor participants especially representatives from those countries where no SME workshop is planned will be invited, e.g. representatives of the Euro Info Centers and SME associations. They will get the education material as well as support and advice, if they plan to organise own workshops.

SME workshop "basics"

The basic workshop will be organized with a broad geographical coverage. Main content of these workshops will be standardized. In addition regional speakers (from "best practice" SMEs, large business customers, authorities, associations, research & development) are foreseen.

SME workshops on specific topics

For specific topics follow-up workshops will be organized in some regions to focus on specific problems or concerns of a single branch, supply chain, or for a specific crosscutting topic. Specific topics for the second and third workshop have to be defined based on the findings and outcomes of the basics workshop (needs of the SMEs) and the branch focus of the region. Results of these workshops will be distributed among all subcontractors to make the findings also available to SMEs in other regions.

In general, all SME workshops will be open to SMEs from all regions. This will be taken into account especially for workshops on specific topics to be held in English. Due to large distances and language barriers it is not expected to attract a larger number of SMEs from other regions for a workshop. Nevertheless, the opportunity to do so will be given.

Geographical coverage

The table below shows the number of enterprises in each region in the sector electrical & optical equipment . Data is not given for all countries of the multi-annual program. The total number of enterprises includes also large-scale enterprises. The share of SMEs is generally a major part of the numbers of all enterprises in a country.

Thus, the total number of enterprises is an appropriate indicator to identify countries with a large number of SMEs. Taking into account these figures, in some countries are 3 SME workshops are planned. Also several countries / regions with a smaller target audience of SMEs will host workshops of the awareness-rising campaign to reach an optimum geographical coverage.

Depending on the share of micro-scale companies, and our knowledge about recent eco-design activities, it is decided whether more basics workshops or more topic specific workshops are offered in a certain region:

Where there is a large-share of micro-scale companies and / or less awareness for eco-design, more basics workshops will be offered, namely in Italy and the Czech Republic (according to data of 1996, Italy was the country of EU-15 with the largest share of employees working in micro-scale enterprises up to 9 employees 18,6% - and with the largest share of employees working in SMEs with 10-49 employees 23,3%) . Among the new EU member countries the electronics sector is of economic importance especially in Hungary as well as in Slovenia . Therefore workshops will take place in these two countries.

The total number of workshops in a region is fixed as stated in the table, but in some cases, namely FR/BE, DE, UK/IE, ES, SE/FI/NO, one of the workshops on specific topics might change to a workshop on eco-design basics depending on talks with project partners, associations and other stakeholders: They might opt for more basics workshops to reach SMEs of different regions in their specific countries. The minimum number of topic specific workshops will be six.

Workshops in Scandinavia will be hold jointly for the SMEs in all these countries. IZM expects from own experience the degree of awareness on eco-design topics and the related European legislation to be relatively high in the nordic countries, so that two workshops are scheduled for the region in Norway and Sweden, respectively.

The workshop in Latvia will explicitly target at Lithuania and Estonia as well. Subcontractor ISSP has good experiences with this. SMEs from the Wallon part of Belgium will be invited to join workshops in France, those from the Flemish part to the workshop in the Netherlands. SMEs from Turkey will be invited to join workshops in Greece and Bulgaria (which will be hold in English). SMEs from Cyprus will be invited to the workshop in Greece. SMEs from Slovakia and Hungary will be invited to join workshops in neighbouring Poland, Czech Republic, Austria, Slovenia, and Romania. SMEs from Malta will be invited to the UK.
In general, all workshops will be open to all European SMEs.

Expected number of participants

The number of participants will vary widely depending on the number of SMEs of the electrical/electronics sector in a region, conjunction with other events, and topics of the topic-specific workshops. At the topic-specific workshops a limited number of participating SMEs is part of the concept as the group should be workable to elaborate results which will be disseminated in all other regions as well.

We expect between 15 participating companies in regions with only a few SMEs of the electrical/electronics sector and up to 100 participating companies in some basics workshops. We expect to have at least 700 SMEs participating at workshops of the awareness-rising campaign in person and many more through the information and selected workshop material distributed through the website, project partners and supporting partners (especially associations, Cleaner Production Centers etc.).

In case the number of registrations exceeds the number of capacity of conference facilities, at some locations (mainly universities) a re-run might be offered on the next day, announced well in advance. Costs for the re-run will have to be covered by the proposed budget.

Partners for Workshop Organisation, Promotion, and Dissemination of Results

The large network of industry and research partners of Fraunhofer IZM will be involved in this project. Fraunhofer IZM respectively the Fraunhofer Society will be host to the workshops organised in Germany and co-host for the Austria workshop. In other participating countries partners of Fraunhofer IZM will be subcontracted as hosts of national/regional workshops.

Modularity and Contents of the Workshop

The workshops will be organized as a one-day-event, taking into account, that participants will arrive at the venue in the morning, coming right from their hometown, and depart in the evening. Time is a critical issue especially for SMEs, therefore participation at a workshop should mean absence for one full working day maximum.

Structure of the basics SME workshops

Motivation

What is green?
• Resources (incl. money!), energy (incl. money!), toxicity, emissions, waste (incl. wasted money!), water, customer perceptions, government legislations, policies
• Life cycle concept
• Relevance of electronics
• Environmental, business point of view
Why green? Exemplary benefits from "being green"
• Green Partnership Initiatives, publicity, legal compliance, international competition
• Benefits regarding product, system, consumer, society
What is eco-design? Why focus on "design"?
• Product design effect on environment and costs over life-cycle
• Eco-Design principles

EU legislation and policy

EU legislative process
• EU environment policy
IPP
• Philosophy
• Content
EuP
• Current draft
• ecologic product profiles
• Linkage to Environmental Management Systems (ISO 14.001 et al.)
• outlook
RoHS
• EU directive
• National implementation
• Major implications for SMEs
• Roadmap for compliance
WEEE
• EU directive
• National implementation
• Obligations for SMEs
• Roadmap for compliance
Others
• REACH
• ELV
• EU Flower
• Linkages and synergies of the different policies and directives

Basics of Eco-Design and related issues

Methodologies and tools
• Checklists
• Screening indicators example: IZM/EE Toolbox
Philosophy
Tools
• Life Cycle Management ISO 14000ff. and EMAS
• Life Cycle Assessment ISO 14040ff.
• Benchmarking
Material declarations and supply chain management
• Material declaration standards (DIN 19.220, JIG, IMDS)
• Requirements of OEMs
Strategies to implement eco-design
• ISO 14.062
• product design process flow
• Eco-design within R&D
Business benefits from eco-design Green marketing and communication
• The consumer
• strategies
Short case studies
To-Do-list

Topics for regional presentations

• presentation of host organisation (partner / subcontractor) as regional expert
• SME case studies
• Initiatives, policies, statements by associations
• Requirements of large companies affecting their SME supply chain
• National / EU authorities: status of implementation (consultants: tools)
• Research and development: case studies, current projects (national and EU funded projects)

Questions and Answers, Discussion

Workshop material

The workshop material handed out will comprise

• General information material on EU policy and background (motivation by reference to environmental effects and market situation), in first workshop language
• General information material on eco-design concepts and examples of reputed enterprises (motivation by reference to market situation and economic potential), in first workshop language
• Supplement of locally specific materials (SME case studies, initiatives by associations, requirements of large companies affecting their SME supply chain, authorities: status of implementation, research and development: case studies, presentation of regional experts) and hard-copy of workshop presentations (eco-design overview slides as well as the slides of local presenters in first workshop language)
• A questionnaire to be designed to help with the gathering of feedback from the participants.


The workshop material of 1.) 2.) and 3.) as described above will partly be derived

• from the eco-design training course of subcontractor TU Delft
• and from a broad range of available original IZM tutorial materials, including the UWE handbook "Environmental assessment in ICT" (see Annex 1: References and Expertise, sect 1. Fraunhofer IZM),

selecting the appropriate topics and modules (non-exhaustive list of previous IZM tutorials & seminars see Annex 1: References and Expertise, sect 1. Fraunhofer IZM). Especially the locally specific materials listed under 3) will be prepared largely by the subcontractors. The material will be updated, completed and adapted to the project aims and target audience. Form and content of the materials will be matched to the target audience by joining the experience of IZM, PlanMiljø and the local IAGs, chambers or subcontractors.

Editing and re-structuring of the information packages will be supervised by IZM personnel with longtime experience in education and training of technical, scientific and management staff from European SMEs (see attached CVs).
The workshop hand-outs will be complemented by the information posted on the webpage (see above).

Evaluation and Feedback

SMEs will be invited to send their questions or topics of specific interest prior to the workshops. If theses questions or topics fit to the overall concept of the awareness-rising campaign, Fraunhofer IZM will address these specifically within the workshop, consulting other experts in advance, if necessary.

Fraunhofer IZM will participate at each of the workshops to receive directly a feedback by the participants. Resulting, among others, from the NIK project, IZM has long experience in evaluation of discussion processes with an enterprise audience for roadmapping and status research.

A major part of the workshops will be round table discussions and Q&A sessions. Hence, the SMEs will be motivated to give a direct feedback on the presentations and open questions.

Fraunhofer IZM with support of its regional partners will evaluate the workshops according to the following criteria

• Describing individual needs and problems of the participating SMEs
• Aspects to be clarified by the EU and / or implementing member countries
• Identifying need for research and coordinative action
• Suggestions for future working group activities
• Quality of presentations

A questionnaire will be handed out to complement the round table discussions and Q&A sessions.

The main questions asked by SMEs will be published in a frequently asked questions (FAQs) section on the project website.

The regional partners will be encouraged to work on the critical issues identified during the awareness-rising campaign by initiating regional working groups as follow-up activities of this project. These activities will be supported by Fraunhofer IZM. A concept for financing such follow-up activities has to be negotiated with interested parties.

The SME workshops are not intended as solitary event, but as a beginning for a European wide network of excellence for eco-design in electronics. Part of this network will be Fraunhofer IZM and the local subcontractors, further local promotion partners (such as industry associations), further experts (especially the local presenters at the workshops), as well as the participating SMEs themselves.

Subcontractors and other promotion partners will be supported by Fraunhofer IZM to initiate frequent working groups, which should jointly work on the subjects identified in a region / branch at the SME workshops to be of outstanding importance. Thus, feedback from workshops will be direct input for follow-up activities. Trans-european support for these follow-up activities will be provided by the eco-design network. Specific topics needing intensified research and development will be part of project proposals within the research framework program 6 and 7 of the European Union.

Fraunhofer IZM is in frequent dialogue with national and international authorities on eco-design issues. The results and feedback from the awareness-rising campaign will be made available for the authorities. Thus, a better understanding of the needs and problems of the SMEs in the field of eco-design will result.