The latest revision of the standard for PCs, which entered service in November requires equipment to significantly exceed the Energy Star standard and achieve an ultra-low consumption standby power mode. VeryPC are the first manufacturer to demonstrate that its products exceed the latest standard and may stand alone on the standard as soon as March. If the existing manufacturers can’t prove their products exceed the latest standard by 1^st March, then our BroadLeaf range will be the only “Energy Saving Recommended” PCs available on the market!

Information Technology in typical commercial businesses accounts for 40% of their total electricity consumption, a significant factor and a significant ongoing operational cost. It is our hope that by moving to our “Energy Saving Recommended” BroadLeaf Green PCs and PecoBOO™ power management software, businesses could save up to 93% of the energy consumption associated with desktop PCs.

Green standards, energy efficiency – isn’t it all rather confusing?

IT industry standards are all rather confusing, there’s; EPEAT Bronze/Silver/Gold, Blue Angel, Green Ticks, Quick Wins, Eco Flower, Energy Star 4, Energy Star 5, etc. The list goes on, there are so many standards, but which ones are meaningful for making a buying decision for the environmentally conscience buyer?

There are different areas of Sustainable IT covered by standards, namely Operational Energy & Carbon Efficiency or Ecological Content.

Energy Star

In the EU, rule 106/2008 states that Energy Star for Desktop PC’s is to be used as a minimum efficiency measure for all public sector procurement. This means that machines don’t have to be registered, but should be more efficient than the standard to be procured with public money.

Energy Star is a standard that concentrates on energy efficiency of products. Energy consumption represents around 80% of the carbon footprint of most IT equipment. Saving energy is probably the most important criteria used for buying equipment, as it has a large global warming impact and can result in total cost of ownership savings. Energy Star is a joint EU/US standard administered by the US environmental protection agency. Energy Star’s aim is to certify the most efficient 25% of equipment.

Energy Star is reviewed regularly and involves intensive market consultation prior to the adoption of the next revision of a standard. With desktop computers, we’re currently between standards, the new Energy Star 5.0 standard will come into effect for all equipment made after 1^st July 2009. Energy Star 4.0, the previous standard, is now viewed as quite relaxed; Energy Star 5.0 equipment uses at least 30% less energy.

With the impending  effective date of energy star 5.0 on July 1^st public sector buyers should consider their existing product standardisation and contracts for compliance with 106/2008. This date is right in the middle of the educational buying season and could leave a number of institutions short of compliance with the standard.

Energy Star 5.0 splits equipment into 4 categories; A, B , C and D. In short these categories represent single, dual, triple and quad core systems respectively. The Energy Star 5 standard revolves around a metric called Total Energy Consumption (TEC) – an estimate of how much electricity you’ll use per year, in KWh. TEC assumes your machine is off 55% of the time, on 40% of the time and asleep 5% of the time. To pass Energy Star 5 for a category B (dual core) machine, it would need to use less than 175KWh per year.

Energy Star have recently launched a specification for Servers v1.0, which identifies the most efficient server equipment, this specification is scheduled for regulation in the EU around September 2009, when it will become the minimum standard for server procurement.

Ask your suppliers for the TEC of Energy Star certified desktops, some products on the market beat the standard by over 60% and can offer great energy savings. For example, equipment from eco-computer maker VeryPC (www.very-pc.co.uk) significantly exceeds the standard and TEC numbers are published openly on their website.

Ecological Standards

All of the ecological standards below require Energy Star as a minimum criteria, however many of them are based upon legacy applications under energy star 4.0. When buying equipment you should check the energy star qualification is to version 5.0. EPEAT for example will not remove non-energy star 5.0 qualified products until January 2010.

EPEAT(Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool)

EPEAT is a US standard, organised by the green electronics council. EPEAT is currently (at the time of writing) not available to any organisations who do not have an office in the US and should not currently be used for EU public sector procurement for this reason. EPEAT is a multi-tiered standard, which awards Bronze for a number of criteria (most of which are a legal requirement in the EU anyway), Silver and Gold are awarded for a number of optional criteria. However it should be noted that the optional criteria include key areas addressed by The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) as a minimum specification for green procurement, meaning that an EPEAT Gold product might not meet the minimum standard outlined by DEFRA! Many of the optional criteria are quite gimmicky, allowing manufacturers to score points for “Own Brand Solar Cell Accessories” instead of carcinogenic fire retardants identified by the EU and DEFRA.
http://www.epeat.net/

Blue Angel

Blue Angel is a German standard for the certification of ecological content of IT equipment. As you would expect from Germany, where environmental issues are taken very seriously, the standard is well thought out, methodical and detailed. Blue Angel includes many of the serious optional requirements of EPEAT and lines up nicely with DEFRA’s recommendations. If a product has a Blue Angel label, all you need to do is ensure that the manual is printed on recycled paper and it meets the DEFRA recommendations. Blue Angel is available to all computer makers that sell in the EU, but uptake with manufacturers is low.
http://www.blauer-engel.de/en/products_brands/search_products/produkttyp.php?id=334

Quick Wins

Quick Wins is the formal name for DEFRA’s recommendations for ecological procurement and it is updated annually. For desktop PCs in 2009 it is split into three categories; Minimum Standard, Best Practice and Class Leader. Each category has escalating criteria for sustainability, Quick Wins is the definitive standard for green procurement in the UK.
http://www.defra.gov.uk/sustainable/government/what/priority/consumption-production/quickWins/desktop-computers.htm

Update Quick wins has now been replaced by Government Buying Standards. More information can be found here http://www.defra.gov.uk/sustainable/government/advice/public/buying/index.htm

Green Ticks

Green Ticks are a mark issued by The Office of Government Commerce (OGC) that exactly follows DEFRA’s recommendations outlined in Quick Wins. The Minimum Standard is marked with a tick and Best Practice is marked with a tick and a plus. To date no-one has achieved Class Leader so we don’t know how Green Ticks will commend a product that does.

Eco Flower

Yet to be released, Eco Flower is otherwise referred to as the “Common European eco-mark”. Eco Flower is an EU mark aimed at solidifying elements of Quick Wins and Blue Angel in a common European standard.