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Verification Round Documents |
Verification Protocols |
Verification Clarifications |
Verification Personnel
Verification Overview
In the EPEAT system, manufacturers add their
products to the registry by declaring that the products meet specific
individual criteria of IEEE 1680. Product declarations are not
precertified; however manufacturers must be able upon request at any time
following product registration to produce the required supporting evidence
spelled out in the IEEE standard. In order to maintain the credibility of
the system, EPEAT periodically selects a batch of products and criteria
from the registry and verifies that they meet the criteria as declared.
All criteria declared by all products on the
registry are subject to verification at any time. Criteria are selected
for investigation by the Product Verification Committee (PVC) based on
random selection, environmental significance, or the expectation that a
criterion may be difficult to meet or highly significant in terms of
environmental impact.
The verification process may simply require a
manufacturer to provide production reports, lab analysis or other data, or
EPEAT may independently obtain products and subject them to detailed
laboratory analysis or destructive disassembly.
PLEASE NOTE:
Stakeholders are encouraged to contact EPEAT if they have good reason to
doubt the veracity of a product declaration; their concern can trigger a
special investigation of criteria or products or inclusion in an upcoming
verification round. Purchasers with questions about a product proffered in
response to a bid tender may request an expedited review.
While EPEAT will work with manufacturers to
correct or clarify a nonconforming declaration, if a manufacturer is found
over time to be an untrustworthy user, they may be barred from using the
EPEAT system.
Why not Precertify?
EPEAT’s unconventional approach - product declaration by the
manufacturer, followed by registry surveillance and ongoing verification
investigation - was decided
upon by the stakeholders during development of the IEEE 1680 standard.
The group very carefully considered the most effective way
to maintain the credibility of the Registry based on the unique
characteristics of these high-tech products:
- Very rapid technology development,
- Very short time to market
- Very complex and continually morphing global supply chains, and
- Very high variability in the configurations of individual products
(components from totally different manufacturers may be found inside of
the "same product" over time )
Electronic and computer products experience as high
as a 70% rate of changes in components, sourcing and other elements from the
original product launch through the commercial life of a given model . Given this
rate of change, a precertification based on a one-time investigation
before a product is on the market is fundamentally inadequate to assess IT
equipment as it will be delivered to the purchaser. Stakeholders
recognized that ongoing and randomly timed surveillance is the best way to
identify potential problems.
Therefore, in accordance with to the IEEE 1680
standard, EPEAT has developed rigorous and transparent post-declaration
verification procedures based on unannounced and very in-depth
investigations, and on public exposure in case of non-conformances. The
system is designed to make nonconformance publicly embarrassing, and to
maintain the constant likelihood of investigation at any time.
Verification Plans and Outcome Reports
Round 2010-3 Documents (Verification Plan)
Round 2010-2 Documents (Verification Plan, Outcomes Report)
Round 2010-1 Documents (Verification Plan, Outcomes Report)
Round Four Documents (Verification Plan, Outcomes Report)
Round Three Documents (Verification
Plan, Outcomes
Report)
Round Two Documents (Verification
Plan, Outcomes
Report)
Round One Documents (Verification
Plan, Outcomes Report)
Special Investigation - November 2009
The EPEAT Conformity Assessment Protocols contain extremely detailed information on the
information manufacturers must provide and systems they must have in place
to demonstrate conformance with each individual IEEE 1680 criterion.
The protocols also contain all Interpretations and
Clarifications of the IEEE 1680 criteria issued by the Product
Verification Committee and/or the IEEE Stakeholder Interpretations group,
which address how the criteria will be applied and interpreted in the
verification process. Those are also available separately through an
Index of Standard Interpretations and
Clarifications
Verification Clarifications Reports
Clarifications Reports are documents
issued by EPEAT and/or the PVC, usually in response to questions posed by
subscribing manufacturers when they declare their products, that are intended
to clarify how EPEAT and the PVC interpret certain requirements of IEEE 1680.
Verification Personnel
Two different
independent parties are involved in EPEAT verification.
Product Verification
Committee
The Product Verification Committee or “PVC” develops
and approves the plan for each verification round, and makes the final
decisions regarding each product’s conformance or nonconformance to each
criterion.
The members of the PVC are independent experts on
electronics and the environment and are contractors to EPEAT. Their pay is
independent of their decisions, they are required to maintain independence
from any EPEAT subscribing manufacturers, and they are generally blind to
the identity of the products and manufacturers they are
deciding.
Qualified Verifiers
Each verification investigation is assigned to a
Qualified Verifier (QV). The QV obtains and evaluates data from
Subscribers and makes a recommendation of conformance or nonconformance
for review by the PVC. QVs are independent experts on electronics and the
environment on contract to EPEAT; they are required to maintain
independence from EPEAT-subscribing manufacturers, and their pay is
independent of their recommendations. QV’s usually communicate with
manufacturers to obtain the information they need to complete verification
processes.
Contacting verifiers: We ask that stakeholders refrain from contacting the
Product Verification Committee or individual Verifiers directly regarding
EPEAT and verification, to maintain their independence of judgment. They
may be contacted through EPEAT if needed.
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