Harmonization with Other Efforts

In order to ensure that the PAIA project remains cohesive and relevant to other efforts in the IT footprinting field, the project team regularly participates in a number of other related efforts.

  • Greenhouse Gas Protocol Product Accounting and Reporting Standard: World Resources Institute (WRI), the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), the Global e-Sustainability Initiative (GeSI), and the Carbon Trust are developing an ICT specific supplement to the Greenhouse Gas Protocol, which will provide guidance on calculating the carbon footprint of ICT products and services. MIT serves on the Technical Advisory Group and has been particularly involved in developing the guidance related to ICT hardware.
  • International Electronics Manufacturing Initiative’s (iNEMI) Eco-impact Evaluator: By gathering data on common source materials, the Eco-impact Evaluator simplifies the process of gathering important eco-environmental information for ICT equipment. MIT has been involved in the development of the tool.
  • The Sustainability Consortium’s Electronics Sustainability Working Group: The Electronics Sector Working Group is focused on creating scientifically grounded and transparent metrics for measuring and reporting environmental and social impacts of electronics. The sector is working to create these metrics using a life cycle based platform and will be in an ISO-certifiable and index-ready format. The initial focus is on computing products with expansion to televisions; the PAIA tool is a part of the footprinting approach for IT products.
  • International Electrotechnical Commission’s Technical Committee 111: The IEC formed the multi-nation Technical Committee 111 (TC 111) in 2011 in an effort to address the potential environmental impacts of electronics and how they could be designed in a more eco-friendly manner and recycled most efficiently. MIT sits on the Technical Advisory Group for the TC 111.
  • United States Environmental Protection Agency’s ENERGY STAR Program: ENERGY STAR is using the hot spot identification results out of PAIA to help inform the development of their IT-related standards.

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