New alliance promotes EPEAT-registered "Green" electronics
By Manufacturing Business Technology Staff -- Manufacturing Business Technology, 1/21/2008 6:00:00 AM
Channel Intelligence and the Green Electronics Council (GEC), which manages the EPEAT green computer rating system, will deliver wider availability of information on products compliant with the EPEAT standard to increase awareness and purchases of green electronics via integration of EPEAT registration status into online product descriptions on e-commerce Web sites.
The EPEAT system—which was developed through a stakeholder process including manufacturers and supported by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency—evaluates computer desktops, laptops, and monitors based on 51 environmental criteria. An additional 28 optional criteria are used to determine whether products earn EPEAT Gold, Silver, or Bronze status.
EPEAT is a required specification for federal purchasers, and is used by state and local government purchasers as well as private sector IT managers to “green” their electronics purchasing. The U.S. Federal government recently integrated a requirement into the Federal Acquisition Regulations that 95 percent of all eligible products purchased by federal agencies must be EPEAT-registered.
Retailers have long been interested in showing which products are EPEAT-registered, but struggle with keeping their Web pages up-to-date. The alliance between GEC and CI is expected to provide purchasers in the public and private sectors with real-time information to evaluate, compare, and select products based on their compliance with the EPEAT standard.
Says Jeff Omelchuck, GEC executive director and EPEAT program manager, “Channel Intelligence’s provision of EPEAT information to e-commerce Web sites will increase purchasers’ abilities to make environmentally sound choices at the point of purchase. That in turn will forward EPEAT’s mission of transforming the electronic product marketplace in favor of environmentally responsible products. While many purchasers already specify EPEAT, this alliance is key to informing buyers searching for greener products whether an individual product is registered as EPEAT Gold, Silver, or Bronze.”
