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Energy Star (www.eu-energystar.org), a joint EU/US standard administered by the US environmental protection agency (EPA), relates to the energy efﬁciency of products. This is probably the most important consideration when buying equipment, as energy consumption represents around 80% of the carbon footprint of most IT equipment, has a large global warming impact and can result in total cost of ownership savings. In the EU, rule 106/2008 states that Energy Star for Desktop PCs is to be used as a minimum efﬁciency measure for all public sector procurement. Machines don’t have to be registered, but they should be more efﬁcient than the standard to be procured with public money.

Energy Star aims to certify the most energy-efﬁcient 25% of equipment and is reviewed and updated regularly to encourage efﬁciency improvements. The latest version, Energy Star 5.0, applies to all computers made after July 1, 2009. To qualify for Energy Star 5.0 devices must use at least 30% less energy than was required under Energy Star 4.0. Energy Star 5.0 splits equipment into four categories: A, B, C and D, representing single, dual, triple and quad core systems respectively. It uses 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 in sleep mode 5% of the time. For a category B (dual core) machine to pass Energy Star 5, it would need to use less than 175KWh per year.

Energy Star has recently launched a speciﬁcation for Servers v1.0, which identiﬁes the most efﬁcient server equipment. This 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 the ecological standards listed below have Energy Star accreditation as a minimum requirement. However, many are based upon legacy applications under Energy Star 4.0. EPEAT, for example, will not remove non-Energy Star 5.0 qualiﬁed products until January 2010. So when buying equipment, it is important to check that it meets the more rigorous Energy Star 5.0 standards.

EPEAT (Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool)

EPEAT (www.epeat.net ) is a US standard managed by the Green Electronics Council, an initiative of non-proﬁt charity The International Sustainable Development Foundation. At the time of writing, EPEAT certiﬁcation was only open to organisations with an ofﬁce in the US and so should not be used for EU public sector procurement. EPEAT is a multi-tiered standard: Bronze certiﬁcation is awarded to devices that meet certain mandatory requirements (most of which are a legal requirement in the EU anyway); and Silver and Gold to PCs that meet the speciﬁed number of optional criteria. 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! In addition, many optional criteria are quite gimmicky, allowing manufacturers to score points for ‘Own Brand Solar Cell Accessories’ for example, instead of the elimination of carcinogenic ﬁre retardants identiﬁed by the EU and DEFRA.

Blue Angel (http://tinyurl.com/ln59ya) 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.

QuickWins (http://tinyurl.com/ krouhf) is the formal name for DEFRA’s recommendations for ecological procurement. Updated annually, it divides products into three categories – Minimum Standard, Best Practice and Class Leader – each of which has more stringent criteria. QuickWins is the deﬁnitive standard for green procurement in the UK.

The Green Tick mark is issued by The Ofﬁce of Government Commerce (OGC) and 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.

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 QuickWins and Blue Angel in a common European standard.

IT industry standards are all rather confusing: there’s EPEAT Bronze/Silver/Gold, Blue Angel, Green Ticks, QuickWins, Eco Flower, Energy Star 4, Energy Star 5 – the list goes on. But what do they all mean and which ones are most relevant to the environmentally conscience buyer? Here Very PC managing director Peter Hopton provides an overview of the different schemes and how they compare.

Peter Hopton, managing director of Very PC.

…some products on the market beat the standard by over 60%…