IEC TR 62125:2007

IEC/TR 62125
Edition 1.0 2007-08
TECHNICAL
REPORT
RAPPORT
TECHNIQUE
Environmental statement specific to IEC TC 20 – Electric cables

Déclaration environnementale spécifique au TC 20 de la CEI – Câbles
électriques
IEC/TR 62125:2007
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IEC/TR 62125
Edition 1.0 2007-08
TECHNICAL
REPORT
RAPPORT
TECHNIQUE
Environmental statement specific to IEC TC 20 – Electric cables

Déclaration environnementale spécifique au TC 20 de la CEI – Câbles
électriques
INTERNATIONAL
ELECTROTECHNICAL
COMMISSION
COMMISSION
ELECTROTECHNIQUE
PRICE CODE
INTERNATIONALE
N
CODE PRIX
ICS 13.020.01; 29.060.20 ISBN 2-8318-9270-8

– 2 – TR 62125 © IEC:2007
CONTENTS
FOREWORD.3

INTRODUCTION.5

1 Scope.6

2 Normative references .6

3 Terms and definitions .6

4 Implementation of TC 20’s environmental policy .7

4.1 General principles .7
4.2 Environmental aspects for cable standards .7
4.3 Environmental check list for power cable standards.7
4.4 Life cycle assessment of cables .8

Annex A (informative) Check list .9
Annex B (informative) Life cycle considerations .11

Bibliography.15

Figure B.1 – Environmental aspects in electric cable standards relating to cable
concept and design.13
Figure B.2 – Environmental aspects in electric cable standards relating to the life cycle .14

TR 62125 © IEC:2007 – 3 –
INTERNATIONAL ELECTROTECHNICAL COMMISSION

____________
ENVIRONMENTAL STATEMENT SPECIFIC TO IEC TC 20 –

ELECTRIC CABLES
FOREWORD
1) The International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) is a worldwide organization for standardization comprising
all national electrotechnical committees (IEC National Committees). The object of IEC is to promote

international co-operation on all questions concerning standardization in the electrical and electronic fields. To
this end and in addition to other activities, IEC publishes International Standards, Technical Specifications,
Technical Reports, Publicly Available Specifications (PAS) and Guides (hereafter referred to as “IEC
Publication(s)”). Their preparation is entrusted to technical committees; any IEC National Committee interested
in the subject dealt with may participate in this preparatory work. International, governmental and non-
governmental organizations liaising with the IEC also participate in this preparation. IEC collaborates closely
with the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) in accordance with conditions determined by
agreement between the two organizations.
2) The formal decisions or agreements of IEC on technical matters express, as nearly as possible, an international
consensus of opinion on the relevant subjects since each technical committee has representation from all
interested IEC National Committees.
3) IEC Publications have the form of recommendations for international use and are accepted by IEC National
Committees in that sense. While all reasonable efforts are made to ensure that the technical content of IEC
Publications is accurate, IEC cannot be held responsible for the way in which they are used or for any
misinterpretation by any end user.
4) In order to promote international uniformity, IEC National Committees undertake to apply IEC Publications
transparently to the maximum extent possible in their national and regional publications. Any divergence
between any IEC Publication and the corresponding national or regional publication shall be clearly indicated in
the latter.
5) IEC provides no marking procedure to indicate its approval and cannot be rendered responsible for any
equipment declared to be in conformity with an IEC Publication.
6) All users should ensure that they have the latest edition of this publication.
7) No liability shall attach to IEC or its directors, employees, servants or agents including individual experts and
members of its technical committees and IEC National Committees for any personal injury, property damage or
other damage of any nature whatsoever, whether direct or indirect, or for costs (including legal fees) and
expenses arising out of the publication, use of, or reliance upon, this IEC Publication or any other IEC
Publications.
8) Attention is drawn to the Normative references cited in this publication. Use of the referenced publications is
indispensable for the correct application of this publication.
9) Attention is drawn to the possibility that some of the elements of this IEC Publication may be the subject of
patent rights. IEC shall not be held responsible for identifying any or all such patent rights.
The main task of IEC technical committees is to prepare International Standards. However, a
technical committee may propose the publication of a technical report when it has collected
data of a different kind from that which is normally published as an International Standard, for

example "state of the art".
IEC/TR 62125, which is a technical report, has been prepared by IEC technical committee 20:
Electric cables.
This report should be used in conjunction with ISO Guide 64, with technical report
ISO/TR 14062, and with IEC Guide 109.

– 4 – TR 62125 © IEC:2007
The text of this technical report is based on the following documents:

Enquiry draft Report on voting

20/868/DTR 20/880/RVC
Full information on the voting for the approval of this technical report can be found in the

report on voting indicated in the above table.

This publication has been drafted in accordance with the ISO/IEC Directives, Part 2.

The committee has decided that the contents of this publication will remain unchanged until
the maintenance result date indicated on the IEC web site under "http://webstore.iec.ch" in
the data related to the specific publication. At this date, the publication will be
• reconfirmed,
• withdrawn,
• replaced by a revised edition, or
• amended.
TR 62125 © IEC:2007 – 5 –
INTRODUCTION
The cable sector has always considered the impact of electric cables on the environment, in

relation to their service conditions, and particularly for utility cables. Over the years, energy

utilities have considerably increased their requirements to take into account the environmental

impact of electric cables.
IEC TC 20 is constantly reviewing its approach to the incorporation of environmental aspects

into standards for electric cables and their components. Environmental considerations should

be included in both design and redesign work with respect to the raw materials used, energy

consumption and emissions during production, end of life disposal or recycling, and in-service

performance.
For example, there is an environmental demand for more efficient operation of electric cables
(lower transmission losses, reduced heating effects, and, as a result, lower emission of
greenhouse gases). There is some information on suitable cable design parameters to
achieve lower losses. Unfortunately, diverse pressures from a number of interests usually
result in the need to compromise in this area.

– 6 – TR 62125 © IEC:2007
ENVIRONMENTAL STATEMENT SPECIFIC TO IEC TC 20 –

ELECTRIC CABLES
1 Scope
IEC/TR 62125, which is a technical report, is intended to give assistance to standard-writers
of IEC Technical Committee 20, to take into account the relevant environmental aspects as
far as they are specific to electric cables in normal use. It also assists them to keep in mind a

clear methodology when considering these aspects and when checking possible interaction of
the normative requirements with the environment. Also, these guidelines assist standard-
writers to avoid too simple or too stringent requirements that might not achieve a favourable
global result.
This technical report, by its very nature, is not prescriptive and does not limit innovation.
NOTE 1 The term ‘environment’, as used in this report, differs from the term as used in those IEC standards
dealing with the impact of environmental conditions on electrotechnical products (see 3.1).
NOTE 2 As regards the impact of environmental conditions on the performance of products, reference is made to
IEC 60068, IEC 60721 and IEC Guide 106.
2 Normative references
The following referenced documents are indispensable for the application of this document.
For dated references, only the edition cited applies. For undated references, the latest edition
of the referenced document (including any amendments) applies.
IEC Guide 109, Environmental aspects – Inclusion in electrotechnical product standards
ISO Guide 64, Guide for the inclusion of environmental aspects in product standards
ISO/TR 14062, Environmental management – Integrating environmental aspects into product
design and development
3 Terms and definitions
For the purposes of this document, the following terms and definitions apply.

3.1
environment
all attributes which affect the quality of life, such as water, air, and soil quality, conservation
of energy and materials and avoidance of waste
3.2
life cycle
consecutive and interlinked stages of the manufacture, installation, use, and disposal of a
product, from raw material acquisition or generation of natural resources to the final disposal
NOTE The raw material is considered to be the base raw material, incorporated in relevant products.
3.3
life cycle approach
methodology of taking into account the life cycle of a product in order to assess the
consequences on the environment

TR 62125 © IEC:2007 – 7 –
3.4
environmental impact of a product

any change to the environment, whether adverse or beneficial, wholly or partially resulting

from the life cycle of a product.

4 Implementation of TC 20’s environmental policy

4.1 General principles
Consideration should be given to the design and performance of the electric cable over its full

life cycle.
The choices made during the design phase will largely decide what the impact will be during
each phase of the product’s life cycle.
Therefore, it is recommended:
• to take environmental aspects into account from the initial phases of product design;
• to avoid too simple or too stringent approaches in setting the acceptance levels of
performance requirements;
• to ensure that potentially safe alternative designs and alternative materials are afforded
proper attention, and not excluded because of historical considerations;
• to optimize combinations of materials;
• to avoid materials and designs that will introduce harmful effects to the external
environment;
• to organize the feedback of experience which enhances continuous improvement of
product performances.
4.2 Environmental aspects for cable standards
To improve the approach to incorporating environmental aspects into standards, IEC TC 20
proposes to:
– promote IEC Guide 109 to its WGs and standard-writers;
– take into consideration, and evaluate, any suggestions and/or recommendations that will
be made by specific environmental committees;
– start to incorporate environmental matters into all its new standards, and when amending
existing standards;
– start with the basic principles in the implementation of environmental matters in standards;

– help standards-writers in their work with a checklist that is based on IEC Guide 109 and
specifically focused on power cables covered by TC 20. This checklist will be updated and
improved by TC 20 as more experience is gained in the matter.
4.3 Environmental check list for power cable standards
The check list given in the attached Annex A is designed specifically to guide and help IEC
TC 20 cable standards-writers in taking into consideration the environmental impacts from the
design, production and use of electric power cables. This list is neither exhaustive nor
mandatory. Not every item on the list will apply to every situation. The list will be updated and
revised according to the knowledge that will be gained in this field by the TC 20 committee,
and taking into account views from the specialist environmental committees of IEC (IEC
technical committee 111: Environmental standardization for electrical and electronic products
and systems). The list relates both to the complete cable, and to its components (conductor,
insulation system, metallic screen, fillers, binders, tapes, bedding, armouring and sheath).

– 8 – TR 62125 © IEC:2007
Environmental impacts must be balanced against other factors, such as product function,

performance, health and safety, cost, marketability and quality; legal and regulatory

requirements.
4.4 Life cycle assessment of cables

It is not considered necessary at this stage to carry out a detailed life cycle assessment of

cables.
Therefore in Annex A no reference is made to carrying out a detailed cable LCA (life cycle

assessment). However, the checklist demonstrates “life-cycle thinking”. It takes into account

the main findings of LCA work in the field of electric cables. In this respect LCA indicates that
energy loss and materials use are most significant.
NOTE Energy losses during service are dominated either by the length of time under load, which could be many
decades for MV or HV cables in transmission or distribution networks, or by a combination of time under load and
the huge size of the network (thousands of kilometres) for low voltage distribution cables.
A first approach on general considerations of a life cycle assessment of electric cables is
given in Annex B. This information is based on the work of ISO/TC207/WG1.

TR 62125 © IEC:2007 – 9 –
Annex A
(informative)
Check list
All components in the cable design should be evaluated for their environmental aspects, and

some of the following may be taken into consideration:

A.1 Preliminary considerations

1) Has it been checked before starting standardization work on a new cable design that there
is no possibility to adopt, with slight amendments, a cable design already standardized,
and for which environmental aspects have already been taken into consideration?
2) Has the raw material production been considered and evaluated for environmental
constraints?
A.2 Design considerations
1) Has it been considered to choose a conductor with the lowest energy consumption and/or
lowest CO emission during manufacturing of the product?

2) Has the possibility to use recycled materials been considered, for instance as fillers? Has
the consideration also taken into account the environmental impact of such recycling
(parameters like collection conditions, regeneration cycle, quality of the recycled material,
losses, energy consumption, substitution rate)?
3) Has the cable been designed in such a way as to minimize the use of raw materials,
without affecting the cable safety, reliability and cost?
4) Has consideration been given to lists of international, regional or national regulated
substances, so that those for which restrictions apply can be avoided or reduced to a
minimum within all parts and components of the cable?
5) Has it been checked that the components do not release hazardous substances into the
environment during raw material production, manufacturing of the cable, cable in use and
final disposal of the cable?
6) Has it been considered to select materials/components that can easily be separated from
other cable components, in order that any available and ecologically efficient waste
management option, including energy recovery, can be used?
7) Can the different components easily be identified?
8) Has it been considered to minimize the number of different materials in the cable design,

without affecting the safe operation of the cable, its reliability and cost?
A.3 Production considerations
1) Has reference been made to the use of an Environmental Management System, such as
ISO 14000, for production?
2) Has efficient use of energy and resources been considered?
3) Have measures for reduction of emission and waste been considered?

– 10 – TR 62125 © IEC:2007
A.4 Considerations for use and end of life phase

1) If a change in a product is also considered to give a change in the environmental

constraint, have measures been taken to give information to the market regarding the
constraints of the products already in stock or on the market?

2) Has information been given to the user on the fact that the choice of

transmission/distribution voltage and the conductor cross-section will seriously influence

the current transmission losses?

3) Has information been given how to recover/recycle the components/materials in the cable

at end of life of the product (which may be many decades), including the possibility of

energy exploitation?
4) Although not a part of the cable standard, has consideration been given to waste
management of any packaging associated with delivery of the cable including the material
and the size of cable drums?
5) Has consideration been given to minimize the energy for transportation with regard to
cable delivery?
TR 62125 © IEC:2007 – 11 –
Annex B
(informative)
Life cycle considerations
B.1 Inputs and outputs to be considered

B.1.1 General
Figure B.1, based on the work of ISO/TC 207/WG 1, presents the correlation between
principal steps in the environmental life cycle of a product, the product’s functional operation
and performance requirements, its design, and other external considerations.
At each step of a product’s life cycle, the materials and energy balance should be considered.
When data are available, the span of the life cycle study should cover from “cradle to grave”.
Figure B.1 also illustrates a product improvement cycle that leads to pollution prevention and
resource conservation.
B.1.2 Inputs and outputs
Environmental impacts of products are largely determined by the inputs that are used and the
outputs that are generated at all stages of the product’s life cycle. Changing any single input,
either to alter the materials and/or energy used, or to influence a single output, may affect
other inputs and outputs (see Figure B.2).
NOTE For the electrotechnical sector, other releases, according to Figure B.2, could comprise electromagnetic
emissions, ionizing and non-ionizing radiation and emission to soil.
B.1.3 Inputs
Inputs fall into two broad categories:
a) Material inputs
Material components used during the life cycle of a product shall also be considered.
These impacts can include depletion of renewable and non-renewable resources and
environmental or human exposure to hazardous materials. Material inputs can also
contribute to the generation of waste, emissions to air, effluents to water, and other
releases. Material inputs associated with the raw material acquisition, manufacturing,
transportation (including packaging and storage), use/maintenance, re-use/recycling, and

disposal of products can produce a variety of environmental impacts.
NOTE 1 With respect to the control of hazardous substances, limitations on the use of substances are subject
to differing laws and practices in different countries. These limitations may vary according to the level of
knowledge of the environmental impact of these substances. This type of information is therefore not given in
this guidance.
b) Energy inputs
Energy inputs are required at most stages of a product’s life cycle such as raw material
acquisition, material transportation, manufacturing, product transportation, use/ re-use/
recycling/ maintenance and disposal. Each energy source has its own set of
environmental impacts.
NOTE 2 Energy consumption during the use of an electric cable may create the greatest environmental
impact at any stage of the product life. Higher transmission/distribution voltage and larger conductor cross-
section may diminish the energy consumption (see IEC 60287-3-2).

– 12 – TR 62125 © IEC:2007
B.1.4 Outputs
Outputs generated during a product’s life cycle generally comprise the product itself,

intermediates and by-products (e.g. during the manufacture of cable components like

conductors and insulation or sheath material), air emissions, water effluents, waste materials

and other releases.
Air emissions comprise the releases of gases or vapours or particulates to the air. Releases

of toxic, corrosive, flammable, explosive, acidic or odorous substances may adversely affect
flora, fauna, human beings, buildings or contribute to other environmental impacts such as
depletion of stratospheric ozone or formation of smog. Air emissions include releases from
point as well as diffuse sources, treated as well as untreated releases, and releases from

normal operation as well as accidental releases.
Emission to water effluents comprise the discharge of substances to a watercourse, being
either surface or ground water. The discharge of nutrients or toxic, corrosive, radioactive,
persistent, accumulating or oxygen-depleting substances may give rise to adverse
environmental impacts including various pollution effects on aquatic ecosystems and
undesirable eutrophication of natural waters. Water effluents include discharges from point as
well as diffuse sources, treated as well as untreated discharges, and discharges from normal
operation as well as accidental discharges.
Waste materials comprise solid or liquid materials or products. They may be produced at all
stages of a product’s life cycle.
Waste materials are subject to recycling, treatment, recovery or disposal techniques, and are
associated with further inputs and outputs, which may contribute to adverse environmental
impacts.
EXAMPLE Disposal of products
Provision should be made that products, which have to be replaced, can be disposed of in such a way as to
minimize the environmental impacts.
As TC 20 electric cables have a very long life time, the impacts linked to their end of life are difficult to assess on
account of the lack of knowledge of the elimination or recovery techniques available in the future.
For the time being the most usual solution for TC 20 cables is through disassembly (mechanical separation of
metal and non-metallic components) and the usual waste management procedures.
When possible, and when environmentally beneficial, standards should state requirements which provide easier
disassembly for the purpose of isolating benign and hazardous materials and encouraging re-use and facilitate
recycling of materials.
Other releases may encompass emissions to soil, noise and vibration, radiation and waste

heat.
B.2 Techniques for identifying relevant environmental impacts
(and introducing environmental aspects in product standards)
A first step should be to identify, for each standard or set of standards, which environmental
aspect(s) is(are) mostly concerned by the products covered by the standards.
However this cannot be determined by too simple an analysis of products.
For each standard or set of standards, experts should determine the relevant environmental
aspects by carrying out a life cycle approach, also easy to use by designers, in order to
detect:
• which products have the same type of environmental impacts;

TR 62125 © IEC:2007 – 13 –
• for this product or product family, which environmental aspects will be most influential in

the environmental impact of the product.

Such an analysis will help to establish the priorities to be dealt with (see Annex A).

The objective of this approach is not to establish specific performance criteria, but to help to

improve the environmental impacts of the product covered by the relevant standard or set of

standards.
Improvement techniques and
strategies
- Resource conservation
- Energy conservation
- Prevention of pollution
- Avoidance of waste
PRODUCT DESIGN
PRODUCT CONCEPT/
NEED
ELECTRIC
- Energy efficiency
CABLE
- Material selection
- Function
STANDARDS
- Material efficiency
- Performance
- Maintainability
- Safety and health
- Cost - Waste management
- Environment - Re-use
- Legal and regulatory
requirements
IEC  1618/07
Figure B.1 – Environmental aspects in electric cable standards relating to cable
concept and design
– 14 – TR 62125 © IEC:2007
PRODUCT LIFE
CYCLE
Raw material
OUTPUTS
acquisition
INPUTS
- Transportation
- Products
- Materials
- Air emissions
Manufacturing
- Energy - Water effluents
- Transportation
- Waste materials
- Other releases
Use/re-use/recovery/
maintenance
- Transportation
Disposal
ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS
- Resource depletion - Climate changes
- Ozone depletion - Alteration of habitats

- Smog formation - Reduction of biological diversity

- Eutrophication
IEC  1619/07
Figure B.2 – Environmental aspects in electric cable standards relating to the life cycle

TR 62125 © IEC:2007 – 15 –
Bibliography
IEC 60068 (all parts), Environmental testing

IEC 60287-3-2, Electric cables – Calculation of the current rating – Part 3-2: Sections on
operating conditions – Economic optimization of power cable size

IEC 60721 (all parts), Classification of environmental conditions

IEC Guide 106, Guide for specif
...