GREEN ELECTRONICS
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A Look at the Development of EPEAT
There is a growing desire by governmental and private
institutional purchasers to reduce the environmental
impact of the electronic products they buy. To date,
however, institutional purchasers have not been able
to easily distinguish environmentally preferable products
among all those in the marketplace. There was no consensus
on what environmental aspects of a product should be evaluated,
how they should be weighted, and how those aspects
could be incorporated into the purchasing process. Current
ecolabels are either not well known, or the range of certified
products is too limited for large purchasers. Governmental
purchasers also lack the expertise to evaluate complex environmental
issues.
NATURE OF THE GREEN ELECTRONICS MARKET
The government purchasing market is large and growing. The
federal government spent $10.6 billion in 2004 on information
technology (IT) infrastructure, office automation and telecommunications,
and is projected to spend $10.95 billion in 2006.
State and local purchasing is estimated to be double that
amount. As the need for IT equipment grows, so does the
demand for greener products. There are three executive orders
mandating federal agencies to buy environmentally preferable
products. Currently, more than 18 states, 30 counties and 20
cities have policies establishing preferences for a wide range of
environmentally preferable products.
RESPONDING TO THE NEED
The development of EPEAT was prompted by the growing
demand by institutional purchasers for an easy-to-use evaluation
tool that allows the comparison and selection of electronic
products based on environmental performance. The Zero
Waste Alliance, through a grant from the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA), convened a set of stakeholders to
establish the scope and process for developing a tool that would
meet this demand. The electronics industry welcomed and
actively participated in the development of EPEAT and envisioned
EPEAT as a way to communicate relevant and meaningful
information to institutional purchasers about the environmental
impacts posed by electronic products. Following an initial
scoping meeting and stakeholder assessment, the EPEAT
PROPOSED STRUCTURE AND CRITERIA FOR EPEAT
The EPEAT tool will recognize three tiers of environmental
performance for electronic performance—Bronze, Silver and
Gold. The complete set of EPEAT criteria includes 22 mandatory
criteria (all criteria must be met to achieve “baseline”
EPEAT ranking) and 33 optional criteria (producers can pick
and choose among these criteria to boost their EPEAT baseline
“score” to achieve a higher ranking level). The three tiers are
defined as:
■ Bronze: Product meets all 22 mandatory criteria.
■ Silver: Product meets all 22 mandatory criteria plus at least
16 optional criteria.
■ Gold: Product meets all 22 mandatory criteria plus at least
25 optional criteria.
development team was convened to design the system.