Advances towards circular economy policies in the EU: The new Ecodesign regulation of enterprise servers

Highlights • An approach to developing material efficiency requirements is illustrated.• It uses product data and quantitative material efficiency indicators.• It was “operationalized” on the basis of lessons-learnt during the policy processes.• Circular economy aspects are identified, analysed, and discussed thoroughly.• The timely involvement of key stakeholders and experts was crucial.

The material composition of enterprise servers, also known as the bill of materials (BOM), is crucial in estimating the content of materials in servers, performing a life cycle assessment (LCA), and calculating material efficiency indicators. Data for the BOM was partially taken from data of the Ecodesign preparatory study (Berwald et al., 2014), and from two exemplary servers dismantled by the JRC during the study (Talens Peiró and Ardente, 2015). Among the parts contained in the servers, printed circuit boards (PCBs) and hard disk drives (HDDs) were especially targeted as they contained several materials included on the EU list of raw materials (EC, 2017).
The JRC's focus for the research was on reuse and recycling and on the design of the servers. An important finding was that some components (i.e. hard disk drives, memory cards, the central processing unit, and the motherboard) could be easily extracted and reused for new and remanufactured servers. Two material efficiency indicators were used to estimate the potential environmental benefits of reuse and recycling: the reusability benefit rate and the recyclability benefit rate (Ardente and Mathieux, 2014b). It was concluded that servers reusing certain parts are generally environmentally preferable compared to servers with only new components. For example, reusing certain components (e.g. hard disk drives and memory cards) is environmentally beneficial even if the remanufactured server consumes up to 7% more energy than a newly manufactured server . This value rises to 20% when the number of reused components increases (including also CPUs and motherboard) .
Addressing material efficiency requires appropriate metrics. The method developed by JRC was used to provide numerical results for two recycling scenarios: the combination of manual and automatic recycling treatments, and recycling using unsorted shredding. Although the differences of the results for both scenarios are small in terms of overall recycled mass (62% and 60% respectively), there are still significant differences for some minor and critical metals included on the printed circuit board (PCBs). For instance, the recycling amount of gold, palladium, and silver falls from 98-99% to 11-26% when unsorted shredding occurs.  Table S1 shows the recyclability benefit rate for enterprise servers for the combination of manual and automatic recycling treatments compared to unsorted recycling. This indicator estimated the environmental benefits (from a life cycle point of view) that can be achieved from the recycling of a product at the end of life, calculated on the basis of the environmental impact assessment categories used in the Life Cycle Assessment methodology (Ardente and Mathieux, 2012). The environmental benefits of the combined recycling scenario are very high (over 60%) for impact categories such as the ecotoxicity of aquatic freshwater, freshwater eutrophication, and abiotic depletion of elements. The potential savings of the combined recycling scenario in terms of human toxicity, acidification, and particulate matter are respectively about 15%, 10%, and 8% of the life cycle impacts. However, the implementation of the combined recycling scenario (and of related benefits) requires several preconditions to be met. Firstly, waste should be collected carefully and delivered to the plant, avoiding damage that might hamper dismantling. Secondly, recycling operators should be trained in the architecture of the server, the location of key components, and their dismantling. Moreover, the recycling plant should be equipped with different lines for the treatment of the various dismantled components (e.g. cables, large plastic parts, electronics), whereas mechanical treatments should be applied to components that can be efficiently separated after shredding (e.g. metal parts) or complex components that cannot be easily dismantled manually (e.g. complex plastic parts).
A synoptic table of the development process of Ecodesign requirements for enterprise servers is presented in Table S2, the steps being numbered in the same way as in Figure  2 of the paper. Table S2 provides a chronological overview of the most significant activities from the material efficiency point of view, starting with the inclusion of this product group in the Ecodesign Working Plan 2012-2014 (EC, 2012), continuing with the preparatory study, and moving on to September 2018, with the meeting for the approval of the draft Ecodesign regulation by the Regulatory Committee (step 4). The conclusion of the process is shown in the next line, with the publication of the Ecodesign Regulation on enterprise servers on the Official Journal of the European Union. The fourth column of Table S2 especially focusses on how material efficiency has been tackled in this real policy process. Relevant horizontal initiatives in the field of circular economy and policy are also listed, such as the publication of the Circular Economy Action Plan (EC, 2015a). The synoptic table also gives an estimate of the timing of the next steps (such as the adoption of the Ecodesign Regulation on enterprise servers by the EC). Table S2 also references the final steps, which could presumably take place toward the end of the process (e.g. the potential launch of standardisation activities). in forthcoming preparatory product studies and review s, when these aspects are found to be significant" 1 Start of the "Ecodesign preparatory study on enterprise servers and data equipment"

June 2013
The preparatory study aims to assess the feasibility of (among other things) a potential Ecodesign Regulation to mitigate the environmental impact of enterprise servers and data equipment, typically by means of energy efficiency or circular economy requirements.  The EC launches its action plan to foster the transition from the traditional linear economic model based on a 'take-makeconsume-throw away' pattern to more of a circular economy based on reuse, repair, and recycling. Ecodesign is identified as one of the legislative tools to deliver on these aspects. A mandate to develop standards for material efficiency aspects of products w as also issued to ESOs (EC, 2015b).    Tb 748 a Silicon in servers is contained in different grades : electronic grade (9N) in the die of packages, and in stainless steel alloys