In recent years, we've seen an outpouring of mandates and regulations aimed at making electronic goods (along with their production and disposal) less harmful to the environment. These range from Europe's Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) and Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) directives to corporate initiatives, such as Wal-Mart's, that impose "green" imperatives on suppliers. Regardless of the source, these initiatives are not optional. Electronics manufacturers must comply, or lose the ability to sell in certain markets.

On the positive side, consumers want products that illustrate concern for the environment. In the electronics industry, where commoditization has focused the purchase decision on price, the ability to offer green products is an increasingly important differentiator. Indeed, in one study, consumers indicated that when choosing between two products with the same features and the same price, they would purchase the one that was better for the environment.

That presents a tremendous opportunity for companies in this industry to do well by doing good. By offering products that are better for the environment, electronics manufacturers can gain a competitive advantage in a highly desirable segment of the market. (J.D. Power reports, for example, that the average income of people who buy hybrid cars is $113,400 a year.) Other benefits of environmental care include lower production and waste-removal costs as manufacturing practices are made more efficient and as fewer hazardous materials are used.

An environmental stewardship strategy must be backed up by concrete action. Best practices for turning care of the environment into a competitive advantage are presented here.

• Look for the opportunity. Companies that view environmental requirements as little more than additional mandates will focus their efforts on collecting and reporting the necessary compliance data. We suggest adopting a broader point of view that regards care for the environment as a way to open new markets or to gain an edge in existing ones.

In other words, instead of asking, "What do the regulations require?" ask, "What do potential customers, who care about the planet, want from our products?"

The most effective organizations are adopting this focus by creating C-level positions to drive the corporate strategy for environmental stewardship. With direction from that level, protecting the environment can be woven into the company's overall compliance and regulatory efforts, and integrated into its mission.

• Help your engineers design green. The design phase is where you find the greatest ability to address environmental requirements. It is at the concept phase that designers must have access to the most up-to-date information on the material and substance makeup of the components and parts.

Asking design engineers to focus attention on an additional labyrinth of product variables may not go over well. It is possible, however, to automate much of what designers need to consider with regard to environmental care.

There are software tools, for example, that can evaluate the physical content of designs for regulatory compliance and end-of-life requirements. These can be used early in the product life cycle, enabling designers to make decisions on materials and components as the design takes shape. Additionally, such solutions can track market requirements for environmental compliance and validate product readiness for market launch.

• Secure your supply chain. This is especially important, because it is ultimately your company that will pay the cost of noncompliance, whether that cost takes the form of fines, closed markets or the PR nightmare of a product recall.

Companies must establish procedures to ensure an adequate supply of compliant components and to manage the volume of compliance information from suppliers. Applications are available to manage supplier relationships and identify companies with compliant components and processes. Similar to the automated tools that help designers with environmental compliance, these solutions can automatically evaluate final bills of material for compliance with various mandates, as well as generate the required compliance documentation. The tools can identify supply chain problems before they make it into production.

• Use "life cycle thinking" to streamline compliance activities. Companies using product life cycle management (PLM) software have an advantage in adapting to new environmental regulations because they have already adopted life cycle thinking--the ability to view a product from concept to end of life. This is important because environmental regulations will require action across the life cycle: in design, as engineers specify components; in purchasing, as suppliers are chosen for their ability to show their commitment; in production, as manufacturing and assembly processes are refined for energy efficiency; in after-sales support, as processes are put in place for product retirement and recycling; and so on.

Life cycle thinking, supported by PLM software, integrates the various stages of the product life cycle (and the data each stage produces) in a way that facilitates compliance with environmental regulations.

For example, when design and manufacturing functions can share data, it is a simple matter to compare the as-designed bill of materials with the as-built BOM to identify component changes made during manufacturing that might result in noncompliance.

In a traditional product development framework, where the various aspects of the development process are distributed, this sort of compliance safety net would take considerably more effort to achieve.

Enabling the product life cycle to foster green design, ensure compliance and support recycling requires additional resources in the short term to extend your company's environmental knowledge and capability. The end result, however, is a streamlined compliance effort.

• Expose and promote your green efforts. With an environmental care plan in place, you can confidently expose what you're doing in the market, while differentiating yourself by promoting the fact that your products and processes are green. This is where real-world competitive advantages--such as enthusiastic new customers--are seen.

When considered from this angle, regulations such as WEEE and RoHS can be seen for what they really are: opportunities that are too good to pass up.

Thomas W. Maurer is senior director of industry marketing at Siemens PLM Software, a unit of Siemens AG.