Environmentally friendly products showcased

Xerox's Document Center 265, which contains recyclable or reusable parts, made the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's list of environmentally preferable products.

October 6, 1999
Web posted at: 11:32 a.m. EDT (1532 GMT)

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has developed a web site that lists more than 100 environmentally preferable products and practices that it believes sets the standard for sustainable goods and services.

"We hope that businesses may find valuable information within this database that will help them emulate these practices," John Ehrenfeld, director of the institute's Technology, Business, and Environment program, said in a statement.

Each of the products on the Gallery of Environmentally Preferable Goods and Services list, which is not meant to be all-inclusive, must meet either the criteria of showing "significant environmental improvement at their most important life-cycle stages," or "show evidence of rethinking the product as a service."

As an example of an environmentally preferable service, the institute highlights Honda's Intelligent Community Vehicle System, which allows consumers to pick up and drop off vehicles as they need them instead of owning and maintaining a car that is seldom used.

The site's design team said their notion of what is environmentally friendly goes beyond the definition currently accepted by the federal government. The government's definition is "products or services that have a lesser or reduced effect on human health and the environment when compared with competing products or services that serve the same purpose."

IKEA's inflatable A.I.R. furniture uses only 15 percent of materials required for conventional sofas, can be shipped in small packages, and is made of recyclable material.

The institute's list focuses on products that do things such as maximize the use of renewable, recyclable or recycled material and that represent the producer's efforts to take more responsibility for the products it manufactures.

All of the products on the list also must have demonstrated a presence in the marketplace because, "a good idea is only an idea unless it can succeed in the market," according to a statement on the web site.

Certain products have been kept off the list, such as those that represent only minor efficiency gains, that contain some fraction of recycled content but are otherwise like other products on the market, and pollution control devices such as water filters and composting toilets.

Examples of products on the list include:

• Dupont's Sulfonylurea Herbicides: Degrade naturally and do not create a toxicity problem
• IKEA's inflatable A.I.R. furniture: Uses only 15 percent of materials required for conventional sofas, can be shipped in small packages, and is made of recyclable material.
• Xerox's Document Center 265: Reduces replaceable parts to only 20 percent of a traditional machine and 95 percent are recyclable or reusable.

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