Environmental Leader

For over a decade, Chris Nowak has been immersed in the business of environmental management, regulatory compliance and supplier material disclosure process.  Nowak serves as Director at Actio Corporation.

Ten Steps to Quality Supplier Relations

Probing the 2012 regulatory landscape, quality and risk managers want to know, "Specifically, how do we start a program of compliance?" The answer is:  start with #1 below. Then proceed to #2. Quality programs don’t have to be drudgery; they can be rational, engaging, dynamic processes. When it comes to suppliers, think “alliance,” not “compliance.” Ten steps to managing ...

EPA’s Design for Environment (DfE) vs. ISO 14006:2011 for Eco-design

What's the difference? How do DfE and the eco-design goal of ISO 14006:2011 compare? Someone asked me that and I realized some research was in order.  Both DfE and ISO 14006:2011 are a systematic way to design less volatile, greener and more sustainable products.  Both are linked to accounting for greener chemicals in products.  So in what ways ...

Thinking It Through: Ecodesign in ISO 14006:2011

The famous Native American law which challenges a nation to think seven generations ahead before taking an action is known as the Great Law of the Iroquois.  Under this law, it's appropriate to imagine your family 200 years down the road -- and then determine whether the decision you're about to make benefits your children seven generations ...

High Noon: Quality Management vs. REACH, RoHS, WEEE

Managers and companies responsible for compliance find themselves at a stand-off with today’s supply chain.  The supply line is young, fresh, dynamic, exciting: bigger, faster, stronger, more.  And there stands the lone corporate Quality Manager.  How does it shake out? The situation: quality personnel outnumbered A principal at Oliver Wight recently told me, “I repeatedly see the lack ...

How EPA Bans Pest Control Products Containing Toxic Chemicals

Citing health and ecological concerns, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced recently that it's moving to ban sales of the “more toxic rat and mouse poisons” to residential consumers. EPA intends to ban the sale and distribution to residential consumers of certain rodenticide products.  Specifically, the rodenticide products in question are known as second generation ...