| dc.description.abstract | As more and more disasters around the world were caused by extreme weather, global warming has become an important issue that no country can or should ignore. The most important cause of global warming is the emission of anthropogenic greenhouse gases, especially the carbon dioxide emitted during production processes. Thus, most governments and large enterprises have defined carbon footprint regulations in order to control emission of greenhouse gases.
Currently, the main carbon footprint regulation is PAS 2050, and the new ISO 14067-1 is scheduled to take effect as of 2011. The basic methodology defined by these two regulations is to use the “Product Category Rules (PCR)” as a standard for clusters of similar products, to assess carbon footprints of products created during their respective product lifecycles.
Taiwan’s electronic ODM industry plays an important role in global supply chain, hence heavily impacted by the regulations of product carbon footprint management. On the other hand, ODM manufacturers can take advantage of the regulations to evaluate the design of their product and improve their abilities in more environmental friendly product development and manufacturing. They can also provide the carbon footprint information to their brand customers for the declaration of their products information. For example, the downstream customers can turn around and use the data to apply for local carbon label or post the carbon footprint data on products for consumer reference.
However, employing carbon footprint management system is not a trivial task for ODM manufacturers. This study first discusses the various management programs of carbon footprint that ODM companies have adopted, and then it examines the problem of building up a carbon footprint management system through several case studies. The problems include “development of managerial process”, “economic analysis”, “regulations compliance”, “technical alternatives”, “marketing alternatives” and “organizational alternatives”. The study can be used as reference for ODM manufacturers when implement their carbon footprint management system from different perspectives.
Finally, this study analyzes the key success factors and benefits of implementing the systems, and makes recommendations on what actions government and associations can take to assist Taiwan’s ODM manufacturers who are interested in deploying carbon footprint management platform.
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