For a few years now, we’ve been working on improving our products’ footprints through an ecoscoring system that evaluates their sustainability impact. But how does that work internally? And does it bring any challenges for our medical products? We decided it was high time for a talk with our Environmental Compliance Officer Jan Daem and R&D Manager for Medical Display Systems Stijn Vancoillie.
Double interview
The ins and
outs of our ecoscoring tool
Listen to this article
Environmental Compliance Officer Jan Daem (left) and R&D Manager for Medical Display Systems Stijn Vancoillie (right)
Want to learn more about our
ecoscoring methodology?
Does the ecoscoring tool come with specific targets?
Stijn: “Barco has corporate goals which are also set for our different divisions, inspired by the idea of science-based targets and circularity. By 2023, 70% of our revenue needs to come from products which have an A label, at the very minimum. And 75% of newly introduced products will need to have at least an A label. I try to push these targets in all of our new products. And behind the scenes we’re also working hard on circular solutions and moving towards software and services.
Of course, all of this comes with a cost, but our ecoscoring is an investment that evolves and gets better every year. It affects the entire spectrum of products that we put on the market, so it’s important to continue on this course.”
Do we have requirements towards suppliers?
Jan: “We already have a quite strict legislative basis at Barco, for example concerning chemical composition. Suppliers can't just supply us with everything. But we do discuss possible further actions with our suppliers, for example about reducing packaging material. And we’ve set some sustainability requirements on a corporate level so they don’t need to be discussed with every single project.
Stijn: “In any case, you need to have your suppliers on board. You can't do it alone. But we see that sustainability is increasingly becoming an important topic for them, too. For example, during our pilot projects in 2018, we received surprised reactions when we requested that power supplies be halogen-free. Now it’s not a problem anymore or it’s even become standard.”
Does a project have to go back and forth in order to reach ecolabel requirements?
Jan: “Always. If every product would get an A+ label from the start, then we’d just not be doing enough. Of course, it’s easier when you can use existing modules that have already gone through ecoscoring optimization. But the evaluation becomes more severe every year, especially when it concerns aspects such as repairability and modularity. These really require fundamental choices at the inception of a project.”
Stijn: “It’s an iterative process. You start with the design and then there’s a first assessment with a questionnaire, which results in a score and specific points that can be addressed to improve the ecoscoring. That’s the beginning of a back-and-forth between the project team and the ecoscoring team. There’s a continuous assessment and that works well.”
Are there specific difficulties for our medical products?
Stijn Vancoillie: “Healthcare is a slow-moving market because there are products that are on the market for a very long time. However, many products are being phased out and there are also quite a few redesigns coming up. So we have a lot of opportunities right now to optimize. It’s a luxury to be able to do this.”
When and how are products evaluated?
Jan: “The Research and Development teams don’t always like us for it, but we do our best to be present at every stage gate of new product developments. Once there is a concept of a product, we’re already present to give suggestions. We take up more of a coaching role throughout the project, but no product can get its final approval before its ecolabel is defined. It doesn’t always guarantee a good ecoscore, but at least we know how a product enters the market.
In fact, we offer a menu of points teams can focus on to score better. And that stimulates creativity and sometimes even some competition between teams: “What do they do, and why don’t we do that too?”
There are four aspects that you evaluate.
Jan: “Yes. We don’t want to get it done easily by monitoring energy efficiency only. We also want to know the impact of materials sourcing, packaging and logistics, and end of life. These pillars are part of a lot of sustainability frameworks so we don’t claim to be unique in that area. But we do pay a lot of attention to how we interpret them, and are guided by future legislation, customer requests and competition. We want to make it clear that we meet certain benchmarks. That’s important because aspects like packaging, repairability and end-of-life also impact the customer.”
So how do we make our ecoscore credible to people and organizations outside of Barco?
Jan: “Firstly, we study sustainability jurisdictions around the world and the course they plan on taking in the future. For example, Europe, Japan and some American states like California have strict regulations.
Secondly, the framework of the tool is based on an international standard, ISO14021. That’s a derivative of the ISO14001 environmental management standard and defines how to build a self-declared environmental framework and how to objectively assess sustainability parameters.
And thirdly, the framework is re-validated each year by an external auditor, Ernst & Young. They analyze the entire tool from a neutral perspective and determine whether it’s still correct and relevant. This really makes our ecoscoring method an independent tool representing the most relevant and substantive evaluation criteria.
So when we launch a new product, it’s best in class in terms of sustainability: it meets the industry benchmark and it’s better than what the legislation requires. Our goal is to evolve to a tool that monitors our products continuously.
We are also researching possibilities to roll it out as an international standard for our business areas. But if a relevant ecolabel were to be created that fits with our products, we’d be ready to adopt that based on what we already have.”
Why did we create our own ecoscoring method at Barco?
Jan Daem: “When we started working on the project a few years ago, we tried to align our product offering with existing ecolabels. But most ecolabels out there are focused on specific consumer products, such as household devices. There are some more business-centered alternatives, but many of these only cover very narrow applications and impact criteria. If we look at our entire portfolio, from ClickShare to our range of projectors and medical displays, there simply is no single tool that can objectively map all of it.”
For a few years now, we’ve been working on improving our products’ footprints through an ecoscoring system that evaluates their sustainability impact. But how does that work internally? And does it bring any challenges for our medical products? We decided it was high time for a talk with our Environmental Compliance Officer Jan Daem and R&D Manager for Medical Display Systems Stijn Vancoillie.
Double interview
The ins and
outs of our ecoscoring tool
Want to learn more about our ecoscoring methodology?
Does the ecoscoring tool come with specific targets?
Stijn: “Barco has corporate goals which are also set for our different divisions, inspired by the idea of science-based targets and circularity. By 2023, 70% of our revenue needs to come from products which have an A label, at the very minimum. And 75% of newly introduced products will need to have at least an A label. I try to push these targets in all of our new products. And behind the scenes we’re also working hard on circular solutions and moving towards software and services.
Of course, all of this comes with a cost, but our ecoscoring is an investment that evolves and gets better every year. It affects the entire spectrum of products that we put on the market, so it’s important to continue on this course.”
Do we have requirements towards suppliers?
Jan: “We already have a quite strict legislative basis at Barco, for example concerning chemical composition. Suppliers can't just supply us with everything. But we do discuss possible further actions with our suppliers, for example about reducing packaging material. And we’ve set some sustainability requirements on a corporate level so they don’t need to be discussed with every single project.
Stijn: “In any case, you need to have your suppliers on board. You can't do it alone. But we see that sustainability is increasingly becoming an important topic for them, too. For example, during our pilot projects in 2018, we received surprised reactions when we requested that power supplies be halogen-free. Now it’s not a problem anymore or it’s even become standard.”
Does a project have to go back and forth in order to reach ecolabel requirements?
Jan: “Always. If every product would get an A+ label from the start, then we’d just not be doing enough. Of course, it’s easier when you can use existing modules that have already gone through ecoscoring optimization. But the evaluation becomes more severe every year, especially when it concerns aspects such as repairability and modularity. These really require fundamental choices at the inception of a project.”
Stijn: “It’s an iterative process. You start with the design and then there’s a first assessment with a questionnaire, which results in a score and specific points that can be addressed to improve the ecoscoring. That’s the beginning of a back-and-forth between the project team and the ecoscoring team. There’s a continuous assessment and that works well.”
Are there specific difficulties for our medical products?
Stijn Vancoillie: “Healthcare is a slow-moving market because there are products that are on the market for a very long time. However, many products are being phased out and there are also quite a few redesigns coming up. So we have a lot of opportunities right now to optimize. It’s a luxury to be able to do this.”
There are four aspects that you evaluate.
Jan: “Yes. We don’t want to get it done easily by monitoring energy efficiency only. We also want to know the impact of materials sourcing, packaging and logistics, and end of life. These pillars are part of a lot of sustainability frameworks so we don’t claim to be unique in that area. But we do pay a lot of attention to how we interpret them, and are guided by future legislation, customer requests and competition. We want to make it clear that we meet certain benchmarks. That’s important because aspects like packaging, repairability and end-of-life also impact the customer.”
So how do we make our ecoscore credible to people and organizations outside of Barco?
Jan: “Firstly, we study sustainability jurisdictions around the world and the course they plan on taking in the future. For example, Europe, Japan and some American states like California have strict regulations.
Secondly, the framework of the tool is based on an international standard, ISO14021. That’s a derivative of the ISO14001 environmental management standard and defines how to build a self-declared environmental framework and how to objectively assess sustainability parameters.
And thirdly, the framework is re-validated each year by an external auditor, Ernst & Young. They analyze the entire tool from a neutral perspective and determine whether it’s still correct and relevant. This really makes our ecoscoring method an independent tool representing the most relevant and substantive evaluation criteria.
So when we launch a new product, it’s best in class in terms of sustainability: it meets the industry benchmark and it’s better than what the legislation requires. Our goal is to evolve to a tool that monitors our products continuously.
We are also researching possibilities to roll it out as an international standard for our business areas. But if a relevant ecolabel were to be created that fits with our products, we’d be ready to adopt that based on what we already have.”
Why did we create our own ecoscoring method at Barco?
Jan Daem: “When we started working on the project a few years ago, we tried to align our product offering with existing ecolabels. But most ecolabels out there are focused on specific consumer products, such as household devices. There are some more business-centered alternatives, but many of these only cover very narrow applications and impact criteria. If we look at our entire portfolio, from ClickShare to our range of projectors and medical displays, there simply is no single tool that can objectively map all of it.”
