This time last year, water in the canals in Venice, Italy, was clearing up. The significant reduction in boat traffic had finally given the sediment a moment to settle. Overgrown lawns became more biodiverse, allowing for native species to thrive. And on the largest scale, air and water quality improved around the world due to steep drops in fossil fuel consumption and the subsequent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.
These stories prove we can make meaningful changes to preserve the beauty and vitality of our planet. They inspire hope, which is so critical to motivating ourselves to make better choices and strive for better outcomes than are predicted today. But, while nature is powerful, there is a point of no return. We must not rest on our laurels. Instead, we must channel this positivity into greater action.
The theme of Earth Day 2021 is “Restore Our Earth,” which examines natural processes, emerging green technologies, and innovative thinking that can restore the world’s ecosystems. It invites us to think about circular economy initiatives and utilize faster-regenerating alternative materials and energy sources while embracing bold ideas that can help us think and act more sustainably.
Embedding sustainable practices into Zebra’s product and solution life cycles is key to our Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) commitment. On our continuous learning journey, we’ve found that taking a holistic approach to life cycle management of our offerings will help ensure both present and future generations can flourish.
In engineering, a holistic approach is one that combines varying practices and skills to complete or achieve a specified project or goal, respectively. Each workflow has its own tactics, decisions, and roadblocks but all converge at the same end. This approach allows us to look at individual challenges associated with each of our product life cycles collectively, which maximizes our ability to solve them.
A life cycle assessment (LCA) is a methodology for analyzing the potential environmental impacts of products from materials sourcing to disposal. By taking a deeper look at the ecological footprint of technology, specifically hardware, we realize the challenges of declining resources and energy usage and also the importance of materials management. To address these challenges, we are embedding sustainability in every aspect of our product life cycle in a holistic manner.
Figuring out which stages of a product’s life cycle have the biggest ecological footprint enables businesses to make informed decisions. For example, through our own LCAs of some of Zebra products, we’ve discovered that the manufacturing and use phases of our product life cycles have a greater impact on carbon emissions – more so than other phases like prototyping or distribution. This information is useful in determining where to allocate research and development (R&D) resources to learn where we can make the greatest strides in sustainability while maintaining cost efficiency.
You may have heard of value engineering, or the approach to achieving a necessary function of a product or solution at the lowest possible cost. But have you heard of reuse engineering, or using and reconfiguring existing assets to become functional for a specified purpose? Both value and reuse engineering can drive efficiencies and cost reduction, all while maintaining the same exceptional quality on which we pride ourselves.
Reuse engineering is common with Scaled Agile Framework® (SAFe) practitioners, especially software developers who look for opportunities to reuse a code instead of starting from scratch. This type of engineering is also important for hardware, as designing products from recycled materials or products that can be recycled helps reduce material waste and maximize product sustainability.
Eventually, every product will reach its end of life. How the product is used and eventually disposed of is greatly dependent on how it is designed. LCAs allow businesses to be more focused on integrating sustainability into early stages of product design so that end of life doesn’t require a landfill or incineration.
For example, many of Zebra’s enterprise-grade mobile computing, printing and scanning devices have a minimum operational lifespan of five to 10 years (compared to the much shorter one-to-two-year lifespan of consumer-grade devices). By making products that are reliable, serviceable, repairable, and that can undergo software updates, manufacturers such as Zebra can extend the life of products and prevent the need for recycling and/or disposal into landfills. Additionally, designing products to meet current and future regulations adds value for customers today, tomorrow, and much further down the line.
Zebra is taking many different steps to reduce the environmental impact of our solutions and overall operations. For example:
A pessimist sees a glass as half empty, an optimist sees it as half full. An opportunist sees it completely full – half with water and half with air. At Zebra, we see every challenge as an opportunity. By taking a holistic approach to engineering and prioritizing sustainability in every decision we make about our product and solution designs, we are fulfilling our commitment to solving problems for our people, partners, customers and planet.
Thank you to my colleagues Nick Clemente and Michelle Grodzki for collaborating with me on this blog post and helping drive product sustainability as co-leads of the Zebra Green Product Council (GPC). Also, thanks to Mani Balakrishnan (Director, Sustainability) for driving bold commitments and tangible results for Environmental, Social, Governance (ESG). I also want to extend a special thanks to Joseph McFadden (Senior Manager, Engineering) for educating me on the concept of holistic approach.
You can learn more about Zebra’s commitment to supporting the protection of the environment and all our environmental initiatives here.
Shohail Ahmed is currently a Senior Engineering Manager for Zebra Technologies, responsible for leading cross functional teams within the Engineering Shared Services (ESS) department. Shohail has more than 15 years of experience within the Electronics and Telecommunication industry and has focused on achieving business goals by leveraging high performing teams.
Shohail holds a diploma in Telecommunication and Electronics from DeVry Institute of Technology. He is also a certified Project Management Professional (PMP) from PMI and currently working on acquiring a Bachelor’s in Business Management from Athabasca University.