Award for ecological product design

This year, the Lillehammer Award was given to the Fraunhofer Institute for Reliability and Microintegration IZM for its contribution to the EUREKA CARE project (Ageing and Materials).

Helle Hammer, State Secretary at the Norwegian Ministry of Trade and Industry, presented the award to Hansjörg Griese, head of the Institutes environmental engineering department, on June 27 during the EUREKA ministerial conference in Thessaloniki, Greece. A second award-winner of the team was Dr. Urs Sennhauser of EMPA, the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Testing and Research. In addition to 10,000 euros in prize money, the winning researchers also received the gift of a painting by Jakob Wiedeman, a Norwegian artist resident in Lillehammer, the city for which the award is named. For us, and for the many companies that participate in our projects, the award is an incentive to continue in our collaborative efforts to further the cause of sustainable development on a European basis, Griese proudly affirms. Environmentally aware design and manufacturing processes, and the development of strategies for the reuse and recycling of products, reduce the impact on the environment and help to provide businesses with a long-term means of saving costs.
An important element is the reuse and recycling of electronic components. Electronic waste is too toxic and at the same time too valuable to be simply dumped in landfill sites, Griese emphasizes. Since recycling is becoming an increasingly important factor in this market sector too, we have been taking an in-depth look at the life cycle of components and products. In order to reuse electronic components and circuit boards, it is essential to be able to confidently assess their quality and reliability. Using know-how developed from their experience in life cycle assessment, the IZM researchers are able to determine the actual service age of used products and components with the help of information on their origin and their prior history of use. It is then possible to predict the remaining lifetime, depending on the intended future use of the product or component.
Besides contributing a great deal to the development of new technologies, knowledge in the field of environmental research and sustainability, the IZM has also made much use of opportunities to communicate the subject to a broader public. One prominent example is the highly successful Electronics Goes Green 2000+ conference.,For further information:,Hansjorg Griese,Phone [phone],Fax [phone],[e-mail]
www.pb.izm.fraunhofer.de/ee

Countries

Germany