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Linden Skjeie,
Environmentally
Preferable Purchasing Program
co-chair for the city of San Jose. |
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San Jose
Greens Electronics Purchasing with EPEAT
by Sarah
O’Brien
The “greening” of the IT world is obviously underway, with the
environmental impacts resulting from the energy usage, toxic content and
end-of-life disposal of electronics becoming familiar to the general
public. In response, IT companies are developing more energy-efficient,
less resource-intensive products containing fewer toxic materials, and green-focused coalitions of industry leaders have sprung up
addressing numerous aspects of the computing world. They have ambitious
goals and prominent supporters.
Many organizations have developed policies that endorse the purchase of
“greener” computers, more efficient IT usage and environmentally sound end
of life management of computer assets. But on the ground, staffers charged
with carrying out these policies often have difficulty putting them into
action. For example, purchasing agents have struggled to establish and
prioritize criteria for buying and for end of life disposition of
electronic products. Because these products have many different
environmental impacts, and because of the complexity of their global
manufacturing and disposal, it has been difficult, first to identify which
environmental attributes to prioritize, and second to assess environmental
claims made by potential suppliers.
San Jose’s Green IT Purchasing
Perhaps
because of its Silicon Valley location with its tradition of developing
leading edge technology, the City of San Jose began to address
environmental issues in their electronics purchasing early. Linden
Skjeie, Environmentally Preferable Purchasing Program (EP3) co-chair for
San Jose, says, “determining how to improve the environmental performance
of our IT equipment was difficult in the absence of a comprehensive
national environmental standard. We had
Energy Star and utilized that in our
RFPs. But addressing anything beyond that was problematic.”
Luckily, just as
San Jose
began to dig into the many issues surrounding sustainable electronics, the
Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool,
EPEAT, was developed. The multi-attribute standard was created
through a national stakeholder process supported by the U.S. EPA and
included a broad range of participants, including private and public
purchasers, manufacturers, environmental advocates, recyclers and
technology researchers.
San Jose became the first city in the nation to include an EPEAT specification
in their contracting for IT equipment. In fact, the City was so eager to
make use of EPEAT that they included it prospectively in their March 2006
contract language, before the system itself was officially launched in July
of that year.
The EPEAT System
EPEAT is a purchasing tool that enables purchasers to greatly simplify
the process of choosing greener electronics. It allows for comparing
products based on environmental performance attributes, including
reduction of toxic materials, materials selection, ease of recycling,
product longevity, energy conservation, availability of end of life
management services through the manufacturer, general corporate
environmental performance for manufacturers and environmentally
preferable packaging.
EPEAT includes a web-based
product registry that shows which
products meet the standard’s criteria. This can be used to review
companies’ overall rates of product registration or to scan through the overall product options available in
different tiers or that meet specific criteria. The registry undergoes
regular random verification investigations.
Purchaser Benefits
EPEAT is a product standard and registry, not a company rating
program, so its criteria directly address attributes of the particular
models registered. “That was important to us,” says Skeje, “We wanted to
support good company performance among potential suppliers, but our
primary focus was reducing the City’s own environmental impacts through
our purchasing. EPEAT includes company performance standards, but mostly
focuses on product attributes. So using it let us achieve both goals. We
also liked that the system included a calculator to help measure the
environmental benefits from our purchasing, which helps us assess and
report on our progress.”
The
Environmental Benefits Calculator
measures reductions in energy use, CO2/Greenhouse gas emissions,
toxic materials, virgin material use, municipal solid waste generation, hazardous waste
generation, air and water emissions, and costs, where feasible. Using the
calculator, San
Jose was able to quantify the benefits of their purchasing and qualify to
win special recognition from the U.S. EPA and the Green Electronics
Council, (the nonprofit group that manages the EPEAT system).
Between the contract start date of June 2006 and the end of September
2007, the City purchased 1,015 Silver rated desktops and 1,042
Silver-rated monitors. Over the life cycle of these products, the City's purchases
will reduce hazardous waste generation by
5.36 metric tons compared to conventional IT products. They will also reduce energy usage by 803,000 kWh, the
equivalent of 75 U.S. households’ annual power consumption, reduce green house
gas emissions by 67 metric tons of carbon equivalent – the same as
removing 53 cars from the road for a year. They will eliminate the use of
168 pounds of highly toxic materials, including mercury and lead, and
reduce costs (mostly related to energy consumption) by more than $70,000.
The benefits will continue to grow over the life of the City’s IT contract
as more products are purchased.
Were there difficulties finding products to meet the computing needs of
City employees? “The EPEAT specification didn’t limit our choices in any
way that mattered,” says San Jose’s IR manager, Cameron Cleland. “Most of
the major manufacturers have many products registered – and there is
enough diversity of EPEAT-qualified products that we had no problem
meeting our needs.”
Future Direction
The EPEAT system is designed to ratchet up over time, requiring more
stringent environmental performance achievements as the market moves to
comply with the current criteria. EPEAT will also expand its product
categories. The standard currently covers desktops, laptops and monitors,
but standards development processes launching in 2008 will provide
criteria for printers, imaging devices and televisions, followed by
standards for servers and mobile devices (cell phones, PDAs) over the next
year or so.
Sarah
O’Brien is EPEAT outreach director for the Green Electronics Council.
About EPEAT
The EPEAT standard (IEEE 1680 American National Standard for the
Environmental Assessment of Personal Computer Products) consists of 51
voluntary environmental performance criteria. There are 23 mandatory
criteria for entry level registration (Bronze), and another 28 optional
criteria which qualify products for higher tiers of registration (Silver
and Gold). To enter the system, all registered products must comply with
the EU’s Reduction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) Directive, meet the
current Energy Star standard for the product category, and have a takeback
and responsible recycling option available through the manufacturer. Click
here to view the standard’s criteria in
brief. The official, comprehensive standard including verification
requirements for each criterion claimed is available for purchase from the
IEEE.
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