EPEAT timeline

2001–02

• A subcommittee of the Western Electronic Product Stewardship Initiative (WEPSI) proposes developing a method for assessing the environmental attributes of electronic products. The intention is to help procurement officials select environmentally preferable products and to provide a market incentive for their development.
• The U.S. EPA awards a grant to develop an electronics environmental assessment tool through a stakeholder consensus process.

2003–04

• A development team comprising individuals from manufacturing, environmental advocacy, academic, trade association, government and recycling entities convenes to develop an electronics environmental assessment tool. They call their project EPEAT (Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool).
• The development team proposes EPEAT registry principles, how the EPEAT system should be structured and how products should be declared and verified.
• The development team finalizes and approves a draft criteria document called “Voluntary Environmental Performance Criteria for Computers, Laptops and Monitors.”

2005

• The EPEAT system transitions from development to practice. A stakeholder implementation team begins to develop options for funding, implementing and managing the EPEAT system.
• The development team’s draft criteria document is submitted to the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) for acceptance as an IEEE American National Standard.
• The Green Electronics Council (GEC) wins a competitive selection process to implement and manage the EPEAT system and receives a grant from the U.S. EPA to begin this process.

2006

• IEEE releases ANSI/IEEE 1680 following stakeholder balloting.
• The EPEAT registry goes live on EPEAT.net with approximately 60 products from three manufacturers.

2007

• The U.S. government issues an executive order requiring that all federal agencies satisfy 95% of their purchase requirements with EPEAT-registered products.
• The first products to attain an EPEAT Gold rating are registered.
• The Canadian National IT Equipment contract requires EPEAT-registered products.
• At the end of the year, the registry contains more than 650 products.

2008

• The U.S. government includes EPEAT registration as part of the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) requirements for computers and displays.
• The 1,000th product is registered in EPEAT.

2009

• Country-specific registration launches in 40 countries.
• IEEE stakeholders begin development of IEEE 1680.2 for imaging equipment and 1680.3 for televisions.

2010

• Singapore joins as the registry’s first international expansion country.
• Amazon.com begins highlighting EPEAT-registered products.
• ZWA, EPEAT and U.S. EPA staffers win an IEEE Medal for the development of EPEAT.
• EPEAT launches training courses for manufacturers, consultants, suppliers and verifiers worldwide.