The electronics industry is facing a new round of environmental impact

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The electronics industry is facing a new round of environmental impact [Copy link]

The electronics industry is facing a new round of environmental impact

2006-7-20

The EU environmental directive (RoHS Directive) was implemented on July 1. Industry insiders predict that one-third of small and medium-sized home appliance companies may abandon the European market due to high costs.

With the official implementation of the "Management Measures for Pollution Control of Electronic Information Products" (hereinafter referred to as the "Management Measures") on March 1 next year, which will affect many nerves of the electronics industry, the Chinese electronics industry, which has already undergone an environmental reshuffle, will undergo an even bigger environmental reshuffle.

China's electronics industry integrates with the world

The EU environmental directive (RoHS Directive) requires that the content of six hazardous substances such as lead in electronic and electrical equipment placed on the EU market must not exceed the prescribed limit, and violators will be held legally responsible. Since August 13 last year, the EU WEEE Directive (Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive) has been officially implemented, mainly to prevent and control electronic and electrical waste. These two decrees are called "the most stringent environmental directives in the world" by the industry.

In response, my country's Ministry of Information Industry and seven other relevant departments jointly formulated the "Management Measures". The "Management Measures" are actually very similar to the RoHS Directive. For example, both sides emphasized that electronic information products must not contain six hazardous substances: lead, mercury, cadmium, hexavalent chromium, polybrominated biphenyls and polybrominated diphenyl ethers.

When talking about the difference between the two decrees, Huang Jianzhong from the Economic Operation Department of the Ministry of Information Industry said that the Management Measures adopted a "two-step" approach to the control of toxic and hazardous substances. The first step is to require electronic information products entering the market to disclose relevant environmental information in the form of self-declaration from the date when the Management Measures come into effect; the second step is to implement strict supervision on products included in the key management catalogue of electronic information product pollution control, requiring them to replace toxic and hazardous substances or meet the limit standards, and then pass the compulsory certification (3C certification) before they can enter the market.

Huang Jianzhong believes that the "Management Measures" are more in line with the actual situation of Chinese companies. At present, in order to meet strict export standards, some domestic companies sell high-cost environmentally friendly products to Europe and the United States, and sell non-environmentally friendly products domestically, making it impossible for most Chinese consumers to use healthy and environmentally friendly electronic products. With the introduction of my country's "Electronic Information Product Pollution Control Management Measures", Chinese electronic companies will be subject to more stringent environmental protection requirements, and environmental protection is not just the business of export-oriented companies.

Strict rules will inevitably bring high costs

According to rough estimates by the industry, if RoHS is implemented, the cost of each air conditioner exported from China to the EU will increase by 15 to 20 US dollars. Yu Zhipu, Secretary General of the Household Appliances Branch of the China Chamber of Commerce for Import and Export of Machinery and Electronic Products, said that due to the implementation of RoHS, the production cost of enterprises will increase by about 10%, and the cost increase will be higher for enterprises involving more related hazardous substances.

Zeng Zhanhui, executive vice president of Guangdong Donling Kaiqin Group Co., Ltd., believes that lead-containing solder materials used in manufacturing kettles, coffee pots, bread makers, etc. only cost 110 to 120 yuan, but the cost of lead-free solder materials reaches 250 to 260 yuan. This is only part of the cost, and the overall cost will increase by 10% to 20%.

Industry insiders predict that in the short term, small and medium-sized private enterprises will be the biggest victims. A person in charge of a small private enterprise said: "We are not a big company. Our capital, technology, talents, scale, etc. determine that it is difficult for us to meet the requirements of the "Management Measures" in terms of production conditions." They are at the end of the industrial chain and have deeply felt the "destructive power" brought by the "Management Measures".

Compared with small and medium-sized enterprises, large enterprises have stronger coping capabilities. Skyworth Group said that these two laws will increase overall costs by about 1%. It is reported that Skyworth established a special agency to deal with environmental laws in September last year. While strengthening its original product certification, TCL also set up a "EU Response Committee" composed of heads of various business units.

The Management Measures are expected to land smoothly

In response to the challenges brought by the implementation of the "Administrative Measures" to the electronics industry, industry experts believe that the electronics market is already an oversupplied market, and the "Administrative Measures" only raise the environmental protection requirements for enterprises, which will not affect the current status of the electronics market. Industry experts predict that the "Administrative Measures" will not have a significant impact on the electronics industry, which has already been reshuffled once by the EU environmental directive, and the severity of the regulations and the leeway for implementation can ensure a smooth landing of the regulations in the industry.

A person from the China Electronic Commerce Association said that in view of the current situation that Chinese enterprises' environmental protection technology is not yet mature, the "Management Measures" have increased the cost of enterprises in raw material procurement, etc. However, in order to enter the EU market, some electronic enterprises in the south have started to take the road of environmental protection as early as ten years ago, which has a great competitive advantage over those enterprises that have not started or have just started the road of industrialization.

Relevant people pointed out that the first option for enterprises to actively respond to the "Management Measures" is to strengthen research on environmental protection technologies and prepare complete inspection materials to facilitate audits by international inspection agencies.