Pace finds it easy being green

IBC 2008 Hall 1 Stand B21

Pace has set out ambitious plans to become the world leader in low environmental impact (LEI) set-top boxes. At IBC the company will launch its ‘Design for Environment’ standard and will demonstrate its green credentials.

Neil Gaydon, chief executive officer, Pace plc said the Saltaire-based company was taking action to reduce its environmental impact across all areas of the business. “Product development is where we have the greatest impact on the environment. Growing demand for our products across the world, which increasingly include more advanced and power hungry applications, means this is at the heart of our strategy.”

Pace is to ensure that the hardware design of future Pace products will comply with or exceed the EU Code of Conduct, the US EnergyStar and Asian MEPS guidelines. It will ensure that 100% of packaging materials used in packaging will be recyclable and 50% of materials used in the packaging will be sourced from recyclable materials. The company is also looking to phase out the use of restricted substances.

The move was welcomed by the US Natural Resources Defense Council and the UK Government Market Transformation Programme. “Pace has always supported the energy efficiency criteria it argued, often as a lone voice, as being technically and commercially practicable by annually delivering product meeting and surpassing the European Commission Code of Conduct STB criteria and other International energy efficiency endorsement standards,” said Bob Harrison, Principal Scientific Consultant to the consumer electronics section of the programme.

Broadcasters have also been working on energy efficiency, Sky putting its set-top boxes into standby mode when there have been no keystrokes on the remote control for long periods, and reducing the power consumption when in standby mode.

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