EBN: Making EPEAT a Household Name

“Our friends at Epeat Inc. in Portland this week released their 2010 annual report detailing the progress the electronics industry is making to produce more environmentally responsible products. The products (including notebooks, desktops, and monitors) purchased in 2010 that met Epeat’s criteria will, in the words of the report:

• Reduce use of primary materials by 15.7 million metric tons, equivalent to the weight of 48 Empire State Buildings.
• Reduce use of toxic materials, including mercury, by 1,156 metric tons, equivalent to the weight of 192 elephants.
• Eliminate use of enough mercury to fill 437,048 household mercury fever thermometers.
• Avoid the disposal of 59,525 metric tons of hazardous waste, equivalent to the weight of four Eiffel Towers.
• Eliminate 31,991 metric tons of solid waste, equivalent to the solid waste produced by more than 16,052 US households annually…
• [Save] over 9 billion kWh of electricity, which is enough to power 757,416 US homes for a year
• [Avoid] 36 million metric tons of air emissions (including greenhouse gas emissions) and over 77 thousand metric tons of water pollutant emissions.
• [Reduce] over 1.6 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions — equivalent to taking nearly 1.1 million US passenger cars off the road for a year.

These are some impressive figures that capture the environmental “savings” achieved through the sale last year of 2,139 unique products in 41 countries. In all, 54 companies participate in Epeat’s certification and registration program. The list of companies reads like a Who’s Who of the PC and laptop market and includes Acer, Apple, Dell, HP, Lenovo, and Toshiba.

The services Epeat provides are good for the planet. And the organization has made huge progress in the seven short years since it was established by the Green Electronics Council. The number of unique Epeat-qualified products more than doubled in 2010. And the non-profit has plans to expand the standard beyond the desktop/laptop market to include TVs and copier/imaging products in 2011.”  More