Appendix – Frameworks to help develop a product stewardship scheme
This appendix contains three frameworks that you may find useful in developing your product stewardship scheme to a standard suitable for accreditation. The frameworks are suggestions and can be modified or alternatives used to support your particular needs.
You will find information on:
- product stewardship life cycles
- determining which part of the product life cycle your improvements will benefit
- a waste hierarchy which shows how actions at one level can result in waste reduction.
Product stewardship scheme life cycles
Typically a product stewardship scheme will follow a similar life cycle to a product or project. Understanding the life cycle of the scheme will help determine how successful the scheme is and when to apply for accreditation. Like any product or project we can learn from previous experience to make the next scheme even better.
A typical product stewardship scheme will follow these steps:
- conceptualise
- investigate
- setup
- operate
- accredit
- assess and monitor
- close down
Figure 3: Product stewardship scheme life cycle
Read a description of figure 3
Product stewardship scheme life cycle. A looped diagram that covers the 7 steps of a product stewardship scheme life cycle: conceptualise, investigate, setup, operate, accredit, assess and monitor and close down.
The life cycle phases are explained further below:
Conceptualise
Develop ideas that could make good product stewardship schemes. These may come from ideas seen elsewhere such as in a similar overseas industry, suggestions from employees, brainstorming sessions, or the latest development in technology. Someone needs to make the decision as to which options could be viable and need further investigation. Consider high level objectives or goals and how the schemes will support these.
Investigate
Once you have your good idea some research is needed to see if it will work in practice. The types of activities you may need to carry out could be:
- review other similar schemes if possible
- research the consumer interest in the scheme to determine if they are likely to support it
- determine if the technology to support the scheme needs to be developed and how much this will cost environmentally and financially
- determine the time frame and costs for setting up the scheme.
Setup
Now that you have completed your investigation and determined if it is worth setting up a scheme you will need to prepare to implement it. Your scheme may need:
- a project or programme to complete the activities required to start up
- development of a new technology and/or design
- marketing or publicising so people know what is expected of them
- to have objectives or goals. Steps will need to be put in place to review and monitor the scheme against the objectives and goals.
Operate
Once the scheme is set up, it needs to run for a while. Anyone involved in the scheme needs to get used to carrying out the tasks expected of them, especially if there are behavioural changes required.
Accredit
Now that your scheme is running according to plan and you are seeing the environmental benefits it may be time to apply for formal accreditation. Accreditation will give you formal government recognition for the scheme and the positive effects it is having.
Assess and monitor
To determine if the scheme continues to meet its objectives and goals regular assessments and reviews will need to be carried out and variations made if required. How detailed these are and how much information is provided will depend on the complexity of the scheme.
Close down
When the product stewardship scheme reaches an end, such as a decision is made not to continue the scheme or behaviours are established as normal and no longer require monitoring, the scheme can be closed down. Now is the time to review the life cycle of the scheme and consider lessons learned for the next scheme.
Evaluating options
When considering environmental benefits, the table below may be useful:
Table 1: Environmental benefits
Product life-cycle design improvement (high, medium or low) |
Benefits within the business | Upstream and downstream benefits | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Purchasing | Manufacturing | Distribution | Marketing | Quality | Health and safety | Suppliers | Customers | Recyclers | |
| Raw materials, eg, use less materials, use materials with lower environmental costs, use recycled materials | |||||||||
| Manufacture Eg, use less materials and energy, produce less waste and pollution |
|||||||||
| Distribution eg, use less packaging materials, use materials with lower environmental costs, reuse and recycle packaging |
|||||||||
| Use eg, increase energy efficiency, repair/upgrade to extend product lifetime |
|||||||||
| End-of-life eg, design for disassembly to make reuse and recycling easier, enable easy separation of materials for recycling |
|||||||||
Source: Sustainable design of electrical and electronic products to control costs and comply with legislation, Envirowise, www.envirowise.gov.uk
Waste hierarchy
Figure 4: Waste hierarchy
You can use the waste hierarchy to systematically work through potential changes, starting at the top and moving to the next level once all feasible opportunities have been taken.
Read a description of figure 4
Waste hierarchy. Starting with reduction, then to reuse, then recycling, then recovery, then treatment and finally disposal. The top of the diagram achieves the maximum conservation of resources and the last option, disposal achieves the least conservation of resources.
Source: Performance Audit Report, April 2007. Waste Management Planning by Territorial Authorities, Office of the Auditor General, www.oag.govt.nz/2007/waste-management
The hierarchy has been formed on the basis that actions at a higher level can reduce the costs of actions at a lower level and the environmental impacts of activity at a higher level are generally less than those at a lower level.
