Standing out from the Crowd

It was a ‘low key’ start on a sunny hotel terrace in Paris 1982 when five editors from photography magazines in France, Germany, Italy, the UK and The Netherlands met to discuss plans for a new award: the European Camera of The Year. Nowadays EISA, the European Imaging and Sound Association, is the most well-known and highly respected pan-European awards organization, comprising 50 magazines from 19 European countries. With its broad membership, EISA is in regular touch with vast numbers of consumers across the continent, whether they live in Athens or Amsterdam, in Oslo or Belgrade. This gives EISA a uniquely ‘global view’ of the European consumer electronics market.

One of our newest awards is arguably the most important. The Green Award reflects EISA’s firm belief that we must strive to deliver more to both consumers and industry. Recognizing that protecting the environment is crucial for our children and future generations, EISA introduced its first Green Award in 2005. The winner was a conventional TV while, just four years later, flat-screen TVs have come to dominate the market. For 2009 a Green Award for Mobile Phones has also been introduced.

Different products, certainly, but evaluated by the Sustainability Labs of the Universities in Delft (The Netherlands) and Trondheim (Norway) for the same parameters of energy consumption, material use, end-of-life (including any hazardous materials that could remain after recycling), packaging and transport. Following this assessment, the products are recycled for real by SIMS Recycling Solutions in Eindhoven (The Netherlands). This process threw up some unexpected results with some of the low-energy Mobile Phone candidates proving rather less impressive in component and material application. Ultimately, at the Annual General Meeting, EISA members discuss the results in detail and select a winner based on the environmental reports from Delft and Trondheim.

Green might be Hotter than Hot, but the extended evaluation process undertaken by EISA for its Green Awards is wholly in line with the judging for product performance in our primary awards categories. Don’t be surprised to see our Green category taking root and growing to encompass other products in the future!

Han Avôt, Vice-President EISA

Published on August 15th 2009