While we focus on the potential for our products to enable greenhouse gas emissions reductions in other sectors (see Low-Carbon Solutions), we are also trying to reduce the impacts of the products themselves.

We look for ways to reduce environmental impacts throughout the product lifecycle by:

• Integrating environmental considerations into product design, from minimizing use of potentially hazardous materials to improving product energy efficiency
• Working with partners in the supply chain to reduce impacts from manufacturing, product packaging and transport in five key areas: energy use, greenhouse gas emissions, water availability and quality (see Story Highlight), waste management, and materials management
• Managing waste at end-of-life through product take-back and recycling programs

Environmental design

Our Green Engineering Task Force promotes education on environmental design. Environmental specifications are included in our Product Requirements Document template for customized use by individual product managers.

We take a collaborative approach to product design, working closely with component suppliers, manufacturers, and packaging partners to reduce the total materials used, eliminate potentially hazardous materials from our products, and increase recycled content of packaging (see Minimizing Use of Potentially Hazardous Materials and Product Packaging and Documentation).

Our Value Chain Management team is responsible for ensuring that all partners in our value chain use environmentally and socially responsible practices (see Our Value Chain).