IEC Advisory Committee on Environmental Aspects (ACEA)

The IEC’s Advisory Committee on Environmental Aspects (ACEA) considers all aspects of the protection of the natural environment against detrimental impact from a product, a group of products or a system which uses electrical technology including electronics and communications.

ACEA advises the IEC’s Standardardization Management Board (SMB) on environment matters, guides and coordinates IEC work on environmental issues to ensure consistency, avoid duplication and conflict in IEC standards. ACEA also makes sure that IEC standard developers consider environmental protection concerns when developing product standards.

Currently ACEA has 12 experts in environmental matters and standardization. As these are not specific to a single TC, the ACEA identifies aspects that need to be studied “across the board”, that can be of interest to several TCs. For example, ACEA pays particular attention to standards intended for conformity assessment. Since ACEA’s creation in 1994 the committee’s role has not changed. With the numerous standardization activities conducted in IEC, it is important to consider environmental protection aspects. In addition, the public’s interest for the environment has increased significantly these last years.

ACEA’s challenges

ACEA’s major challenge is to offer a global platform for environmental protection aspects. On the one hand, this requires meeting new regional legislations. A good example is the European WEEE and RoHS directives which concern the treatment of waste from electrical and electronic equipment and the restriction of hazardous substances in their manufacture. On the other hand, the ACEA must remain independent.

Currently, one can see two major trends, which should decisively influence standardization’s role in environmental protection. Firstly, there is a growing public interest for electrotechnical products’ environmental effects. Secondly, increased efforts in various regions, especially Europe, are improving the energy efficiency of products to achieve political objectives. This new approach can certainly not be transferred to the IEC, but this example shows how the IEC must nonetheless pay attention to the consistency of its standards.

Environmental issues requiring special attention

There are issues specific to each IEC technical committee, but overall the growing significance of products’ energy efficiency and the need for pollutant-free materials are important issues addressed by ACEA.

Environmentally Conscious Design

IEC Guide 114 (Environmentally conscious design – Integrating environmental aspects into design and development of electrotechnical products) was published in early May 2005. It provides the basis for incorporating environmental issues in product-specific standards to be developed by product TCs. It complements IEC Guide 109 (Environmental aspects – Inclusion in electrotechnical product standards) which was published in 2003.