Integrated product policy and ecological footprint of electronic products

Abstract

The ecological footprint (EF) methodology, developed by Wackemagel and Rees (1996), is already a very effective sustainability indicator for the human impact on earth. EFs are calculated by dividing the biologically productive land and sea space of the earth by its population. Thus, EF can be established on a global or other geographic level. In this paper, the authors discuss whether the EF can be brought down to a product level to assess the sustainability of a personal computer (PC). They also used land-space as a single indicator to make results comparable to the current world-average footprint. Recent work in this sector has been done by Buitenkamp and Spapens (1999). This paper extends their research.