Overview of EPI Services
As countries around the world implement Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) programs for packaging, electronic products and batteries, compliance becomes extremely complex for the multinational company. EPI offers a broad range of consulting services to meet your needs.
Global Regulatory Tracking
As design, labeling, and waste recovery regulations change, EPI provides in-depth, actionable guidance on new EPR legislation worldwide to help companies address new requirements. EPI's tracking services are tailored to your company's product lines and markets. In addition to supporting your current compliance efforts, EPI tracking services can help you identify and anticipate trends in these still-evolving requirements.
EPI provides an overview of the requirements in each jurisdiction, and can also provide detailed guidance on how to comply with them in a cost-effective manner in the form of a guidebooks and manuals to support your personnel in their compliance-related activities.
Compliance Inventories and Action Plans
Companies who fail to comply with global requirements risk major fines and penalties, rejection and/or detention of their products at customs, and public announcement of their violations by regulatory authorities. In order to assist its clients in assessing their compliance status with respect to international environmental packaging and product requirements, EPI conducts surveys of its clients' international operations, sales affiliates, and dealers. Surveys contain questions regarding fee payment, labeling and design compliance and also addresses business efficiency issues. EPI reviews the survey responses, reports on overall compliance status and suggests ways of achieving compliance in a cost-effective manner. This approach is useful in determining where compliance gaps and liabilities exist and how best to proceed towards compliance.
Compliance throughout the Supply Chain
Brandowners and manufacturers rely on their suppliers to provide environmentally compliant packaging and electronic products and components, as well as accurate data. EPI can assist in developing certification and due diligence programs to ensure that your suppliers and OEMs are meeting their obligations.
Design Guidance & Specifications
Packaging, electronics and batteries are subject to design requirements in many jurisdictions. These include source reduction, recycled content requirements, empty space limits, elimination of hazardous materials, and design for recyclability. EPI will work with your environmental personnel, your packaging and/or product developers, and procurement teams to develop procedures to ensure compliance with product and packaging design regulations worldwide, while minimizing the recovery fees your products incur. EPI can develop customized specifications, design protocols, guidelines, and reference documents for your personnel, and can maintain them as regulations change.
Analysis of Packaging / Product Designs
EPI provides on-demand analysis of existing and prototype packaging systems (and/or electronics products and batteries) for the purpose of assessing the impact on fees and/or design compliance in all relevant markets. Fee analysis is useful for clients that are assessing several possible design options and are interested in how the various designs would affect cost of goods. In addition to aiding design choices, this enables clients to incorporate packaging and product recovery fees into the cost of goods.
Design analysis may also entail, for example, determining whether or not a package or product is labeled properly for the targeted markets. Design analysis is an important step for clients preparing to import products into countries with strict requirements and active enforcement.
Optimizing Fee Reporting
Taking into account your product lines, economic activities in each market, and types of packaging, electronic products and batteries, EPI will apply its thorough knowledge of the EPR rules in each country to improve the accuracy of your reports, minimize fee impacts, and evaluate new designs with respect to waste fees. EPI helps you sort out the rules so that you are in compliance without overpaying. EPI also provides turnkey fee reporting services.
Compliance Databases
Compliance with fee requirements requires coordination and the timely flow of information between many parts of a company. Through use of detailed reporting databases, EPI helps you streamline the process of waste reporting for packaging, electronic products and batteries.
EPI offers web-based database systems that facilitate data collection from the entire supply chain, data capture for new designs during the design process, and compliance with a variety of global take-back, design, and reporting requirements for packaging, batteries, and electronic products.
See Software Solutions for more detailed information.
Labeling Requirements
Locally compliant labeling is crucial for successful sales in the global marketplace. Complex labeling requirements not only impact producers of electronic equipment and batteries, but also almost any company that packages its product. Product designers must understand where and when they are required to label their electronic product, batteries, packaging and/or user manuals with environmental symbols and information, such as disposal and material content. EPI tracks all of these various layers of labeling requirements and distills them into detailed, clear instructions for your designers.
Design for the Environment
For proactive companies striving towards minimization of environmental impacts of products and/or packaging, EPI can help develop a Design for Environment (DfE) program. This may include benchmarking and progress monitoring and creation of additional tools, information resources, for design personnel and drafting of specification and/or certification language to address environmentally preferable purchasing policies. EPI can also provide guidance on certification of products under a "green labeling" scheme or partnerships with other organizations such as recyclers or NGOs who focus on a specific attribute of a product or package.
Training
EPI conducts presentations and workshops to educate and train clients' staff on the issues of domestic and international environmental packaging, electronic product and battery requirements. These sessions are useful at many stages. Most clients require an initial education session to make them aware of basic requirements. More specific workshops are useful to train in-house training staff and/or other staff (e.g., Design Engineers, Marketing, Finance) in the use of design protocols or to engage in discussions of "next steps" towards compliance. EPI usually conducts these sessions on-site, with the aid of a presentation covering the relevant issues, followed by exercises or focused discussion. EPI can also conduct customized training to familiarize designers with DfE principles and tools.
Custom Research Services
EPI also provides customized on-demand research services for clients seeking individualized advice on any packaging or product stewardship requirements. This could include, for example, seeking clarification of a regulation's applicability to a client's specialized product type, interpretations of requirements or definitions, applying for exemptions from certain labeling requirements, or negotiating discounts or payment arrangements with third-party organizations. EPI has experience dealing with the third-party organizations and regulatory authorities and can help find answers to your individual questions.
