Sustainability is at the core of how Rohde & Schwarz manages its business. We are committed to making careful, ecologically sound use of natural resources and minimizing the environmental footprint of our operations wherever we can. Besides reducing and avoiding greenhouse gas emissions, our efforts and initiatives toward sustainability include thorough compliance with prevailing environmental laws, directives and standards such as RoHS, REACH, WEEE and ISO 14001. At the same time, we work to demanding in-house standards, framed in company directives and targets, that are more stringent than today’s statutory requirements.
Environmental responsibility at Rohde & Schwarz encompasses the entire product life cycle, from design and development to production and takeback. It influences all our business processes and shapes the way we manage our company locations. Our continued efforts to advance sustainable environmental practices at Rohde & Schwarz not only reduce our eco-footprint but are also beneficial for our customers.
Rohde & Schwarz products are environment-friendly throughout their life cycle. When we design new products, we follow internal guidelines on environmentally compatible product design that help reduce energy consumption, minimize waste volumes and avoid harmful substances.
Rohde & Schwarz products are environment-friendly throughout their life cycle. When we design new products, we follow internal guidelines on environmentally compatible product design that help reduce energy consumption, minimize waste volumes and avoid harmful substances.
Energy-efficient equipment is less costly to operate, conserves resources and avoids heat build-up, both inside the equipment and in the surrounding area. This increases equipment reliability, extends operating life and reduces the need for cooling. Products from Rohde & Schwarz are among the most energy-efficient in the industry. Our latest TV transmitters, for example, consume 25 % less power than the previous generation, which already had a strong reputation for power efficiency. The low power consumption of our test and measurement systems used in production also creates valuable savings. Achieving significant reductions in power consumption is an important engineering target with every new generation of equipment we create. One approach we take is to incorporate intelligent power management solutions – in modules as well as in the proprietary application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) that are key components in the majority of the equipment we produce.
Wherever possible, Rohde & Schwarz uses highly integrated, energy-efficient components based on the latest technology to achieve performance targets and keep component count low. Besides lowering materials costs, component integration also enables us to build more compact equipment and significantly reduce our energy and raw material requirements.
All Rohde & Schwarz test and measurement equipment introduced since 2006 is lead-free and meets RoHS and China RoHS requirements. This means these products are free of substances that are either restricted or prohibited by law. The same applies to other products insofar as they do not rely on specific groups of substances in order to meet special requirements, such as the ability to operate in extreme environments. We avoid harmful substances whenever there are viable alternatives. When it comes to equipment finishes, we primarily use environmentally compatible powder coatings. We also comply with the European Union’s REACH requirements on the use and declaration of materials in our products.
As a market-leading supplier of electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) test and measurement systems, we naturally take steps to ensure that our products in general offer first-rate EMC performance.
Products from Rohde & Schwarz are commonly based on future-safe platforms that are capable of adapting in line with customers’ changing needs or the latest technological advances without requiring the base equipment to be replaced. As a result, Rohde & Schwarz products have an extended life, which is advantageous both economically and environmentally.
Rohde & Schwarz uses environmentally friendly materials for transport packaging that can be taken back, reused, or disposed of safely and professionally, as appropriate.
For many years now, Rohde & Schwarz has engineered its products to be recycling-friendly. Our “Design 2000” enclosure system for our test and measurement equipment, developed in part with a view to greater recyclability, won us an Ecology Design Award in 1998. Our equipment is modular and designed for easy maintenance, making it simple to disassemble. The mechanical parts, standardized as far as possible across all product families, are easy to sort into separate material types for recycling. We also take back and professionally recycle all mandatory products in compliance with the European Union’s WEEE directive.
We take steps to ensure that the facilities we build and operate around the world protect and preserve resources and the environment as far as possible. Our development center in Munich, for instance, has no air-conditioning systems; instead, it is cooled with ground water, a solution that saves at least 20,000 kilowatt hours of energy during the summer months.
Rohde & Schwarz’s Munich location has also been involved for several years in the city’s ÖKOPROFIT (“Profitable Ecology”) program, set up to drive continuous improvements in environmental performance and environmental management. Regular environmental and energy audits help us to identify potential areas for improvement. The Rohde & Schwarz subsidiaries and offices around the world also engage in environmental initiatives and contribute actively to the development of sustainability strategies.
