Portsmouth, NH – Citizens Advisers has conducted a follow-up survey to its 2004 examination of environmental regulations on the consumer electronics industry. The research explores the industry’s preparedness to meet new European Union directives requiring the phaseout of toxic chemicals by July 2006. Citizens’ social researcher Vesela Veleva, Sc.D., who co-authored the survey with Citizens’ Suresh A. Sethi, is presenting the findings today at the Take it Back! 2005 conference in Alexandria, VA.
The research team surveyed 34 manufacturers in the electronic component sector of the electronics industry whose stocks are current or former holdings of Citizens’ portfolios. The pool included the 26 companies originally surveyed in February 2004.
Highlights of the findings include:
- 82% of respondents stated they would meet the July 1, 2006, European Union directive deadline to phase out from their products six toxic chemicals (lead, cadmium, hexavalent chromium, mercury, penta-BDE and Octa-BDE).
- None of the respondents said they would impose a product-wide “price-adder” as a result of the reformulation of their products, although 64% said it might apply to some products.
- 27% of respondents said they would phase out restricted chemicals in all markets worldwide.
- 78% of respondents said they would go beyond compliance to phase out additional chemicals of concern.
“Many of the companies that responded to our survey are among the most proactive in the industry today and tend to be early adopters of environmental regulations,” observed Dr. Veleva. “However, we were quite pleased to find that so many are going beyond minimal compliance by targeting additional chemicals of concern.”
For further information about Citizens’ study, please click here.
About Citizens Advisers
Citizens Advisers has been a leader in responsible investing since its founding in 1982. Citizens’ mission is to generate superior returns by investing in companies that are fundamentally strong and demonstrate good corporate citizenship. Serving the needs of institutional and individual investors as well as financial intermediaries, Citizens offers domestic and global equity, fixed-income and money market products.
