HCL’s initiatives on phasing out PVC & BFR in product manufacturing

HCL is working towards phasing out of PVC in all its manufactured products in consultation with its suppliers. In the first phase the objective is to phase out all use of PVC in external casing of products and subsequently phasing out use of PVC totally. We are targeting to phase out PVC from our manufactured products by 31st December 2009. HCL is currently working on an economically viable substitute for phasing out PVC.

Brominated flame retardants are the designated name for a group of brominated organic substances that have an inhibitory effect on the ignition of combustible organic materials. BFRs are commonly used in electronic products as a means of reducing the flammability of the product. BFRs are persistent and bioaccumulative and are highly toxic to both humans and the environment when disposed and hence are being banned from use as more benign alternatives become available.

HCL is currently working on phasing out BFR elements from its manufactured products and striving to phase out BFR by 31st December 2010.

HCL expects the reliable, environmentally sound, scalable and economically viable technical solution to be available for PVC and BFR free products by 31st December 2009 and 31st December 2010 respectively. Accordingly the commercial launch and market readiness should take 3-6 months after the time of availability of technically viable solution.

Consolidated Status on PVC & BFR Phase-out:

We started our PVC/BFR phase-out drive in August 2007, and set a time-line for PVC/BFR elimination from our product-line as per the chart below:



So far, we have contacted 45 suppliers, out of which 43 have responded, and finally, communication was sent to 30 vendors with target time-lines for PVC and/or BFR elimination from their supply-items.

Suppliers Response Data

S.No	Parameters	Numbers	Percentage
1.	Total Number of suppliers contacted	47	100
2.	Suppliers not responded	4	8.5
3.	Suppliers responded	43	91.5
	3.1 Concluded	42	89.3
	Targets Given	30	63.8

In response to this, we received affirmative replies from 15 suppliers. 5 among them provided us a PVC free component/part, 7 suppliers provided us with a component/part which was both PVC & BFR free, and 3 among them provided us a BFR free component/part.

We will keep on working towards meeting or exceeding our time-line for BFR free product models by the committed date of 31st December 2010.

PVC BFR Free Components

BFR Free
1. Few models of Optical Drives
2. Few models of SMPS
3. Few models of Keyboard

PVC Free
1. Few models of Optical drives
2. Few models of Hard disk drives
3. Few models of Memory modules
4. FanSink

BFR & PVC Free
1. Heatsink used for CPU cooling
2. Motherboard
3. Cabinet
4. Hard Disk
5. Memory
6. Keyboard