Celebrate Earth Hour 24 hours 365 days

Tags: earth hour, energy saving, environment, ICT products, IT products, laptop, TCO Certified

On Saturday March 26th hundreds of millions of people around the world are expected to participate in the world’s largest climate manifestation Earth Hour, and show our support by turning off the lights for one hour. Earth Hour is a great symbolic gesture to highlight the problems with climate change we are facing.

Why not show your support for the earth and “celebrate” Earth Hour every hour 7 days a week by switching off electronically gadgets when not using and change to ICT-products with minimal impact on the environment.

Pledge your support for more laptops designed for the planet
One simple action for more “green” notebooks is to show the IT industry that there are many of us who want to see more notebooks designed with the environment in mind.  On TCO Development’s website  you can show your support and take part together with companies, national authorities and individual people all over the world to influence the major computer manufacturers to offer the market more TCO certified notebooks.  Pledge your support for laptops designed for the planet.

Why is it important to remove halogen from electronic products?

Tags: breast milk, fire retardant, halogen free computer displays, halogen free electronic products, halogen free IT products, halogenated substances, hazardous substances, health problems, ICT products, NEC EA222We, RoHS, TCO Certified, TCO Certified edge award

This week, in a major development for green technology, the TCO Certified eco-label for electronics, together with display industry leader NEC, announced the NEC Eco-Flagship EA222WMe wide computer monitor as the first to receive the TCO Certified Edge award for designing a product completely free of halogens, a proven hazard to human health and the environment. This groundbreaking achievement is a major step towards a more sustainable ICT infrastructure.

For almost 15 years, removing halogenated substances from electronic products has been an ambition of  the TCO Certified program and other advocates of environmental and human health . Halogens such as brominated and chlorinated flame retardants are proven to pose substantial risks, both to the natural environment and also to the health of animals and humans. The challenge of eliminating these substances has been to work closely with industry partners to find viable alternatives that still maintain the safety features otherwise provided by halogenated content in the product.  This long term collaboration has now brought to market the first electronic products completely free from halogenated substances.

Halogenated substances have been used as an inexpensive and simple fire retardant in electronics, textiles and other everyday products for many years. They are also commonly used as a “plasticizer” in many products, giving the product a softer, pliable character. The environmental and health problems with halogen lie in its stability and persistence. It doesn’t break down when disposed of but is actually shown to remain in plants, animals and humans, for example in fat and breast milk. It has also been shown to adversely affect hormonal function, potentially causing fertility problems.

Voluntary third party certifications such as TCO Certified can help influence the progress of green design by recognizing front runners in industry who are successful in phasing out hazardous substances. But industry-wide adoption of these practices demands that legislation includes these good design practices by tightening existing legislation. The RoHS directive has been instrumental in brining about a reduction in the use of halogenated substances and other hazardous materials in electronics. However there are still many exclusions and exceptions to RoHS, which need to be tightened in order to realize a market where halogen-free electronics are the norm rather than the exception. 

TCO Certified continues to work closely with industry,  research and user communities  as well as environmental experts and legislators to ensure ongoing  progress in the  development of ICT products that are designed for the environment and usability.

Consumer Electronics Show, Las Vegas – mobility and green take center stage.

Tags: CES, Green IT, ICT products, USA

ust back from the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, where Mobility, social media and eco-friendliness were key themes among many of the product lines on show.
Of particular note was the number of tablet PCs that were creating a lot of attention – offering consumers a more powerful PC than a netbook, but more versatility than a larger sized notebook. Touch screens were also a popular trend, with some netbooks featuring multi-touch technology allowing for maximum flexibility for the user to manipulate the image on the screen. Social media applications were everywhere, with facebook- and twitter-friendly technologies gaining a lot of attention. Microsoft and HP even organized a spontaneous “Tweet and Greet” event on the show floor, relying exclusviely on the social network to spread the word and gather attendees.

Environmental features continue to be a big story in consumer electronics. Energy efficient LED backlit TVs and Notebooks are growing in poularity and several products featured motion sensor technologies that set the screen into sleep mode once the user left the room, and even a TV that can detect whether a viewer is or doing another activity, and adjusting the brightness of the TV automatically.

Overall, industry reps we talked to at CES are looking to these new technologies to help drive the economic recovery. Click here for more product reviews and news from CES.

Money talks when it comes to energy efficiency, but when will e-waste be on the top of the green-IT agenda?

Tags: carbon footprint, dumping e-waste to developing countries, E-waste from USA, e-waste; Greenpeace, energy efficency, Green IT, Green IT Expo, ICT products, TCO Certified

Report from London Green IT Expo

My colleague Susanna and I went to London Green IT Expo, which took place on November 10-11th. We had expected to see some interesting innovations and hear some good discussions regarding green IT.
To some extend our expectations were met:  There were a lot about energy efficiency and efforts to increase the carbon foot print.

But there were surprisingly very little about e-waste and recycling of ICT-products at Green IT Expo.
Research director Andy Lawrence from The 451 Group, held a presentation about the coming trends within green IT for the next five years.  All of the trends he presented were about energy efficiency and none about how the industry and the users should act on decreasing the problems with e-waste.
But there was one exception: Catalina McGregor from Green ICT Delivery, HM Government’s CIO/CTO Council held an interesting presentation on the topic: Dirty ICT: What it is? And How Do You Clean Up Your Act. Ms McGregor showed some videoclips from Greenpeace that illustrated the huge problems e-waste from the so called developed countries are dumping in the third world. See video from Greenpeace:  one from India and one from Ghana

The messages from these films are that the best way to decrease the problems with hazardous substanses from e-waste is to don’t have these substances in the ICT products at all. TCO Certified is working in this direction by having criteria on  minimized levels of hazardous substances and that the products must be repaired for recycling.  The goal is to ban all hazardous substances. Another thing you can do to decreasing problems with e-waste is to buy a product with good performance that has a long life time, so you will keep your product longer.

It is definitely time for the richer countries to make some significant efforts when it comes to e-waste.  In 2009 no people in the world should be exposed for hazardous and toxic substances as led, mercury and cadmium etcetera. And it is also about time that e-waste will have a bigger share of the Green IT concept.

If you would like to know more about the e-waste from USA, see this film

In touch with your display

Tags: Add new tag, computer display, ICT products, image quality, laptop, LCD display

The Iphone pointed out the direction and the rest of the industry is eager to follow. The touchscreens are coming! It’s not that new of course. Touchscreens have been around for some time in ATMs and similar applications. But now with the launch of Windows 7 the road is paved. Many of the major brands have already launched notebooks with touchscreens. I just can’t help but wonder what the glossy screen will look like after a few hours…

New leadership at TCO Development – a message from new Managing Director Sören Enholm

Tags: environment, Green IT, ICT products, new leadership, usability

It’s with a sense of anticipation and opportunity that I join TCO Development.  This is an exciting time to be involved in eco-labeling and green technology, withTCO Development uniquely positioned to provide leadership in this rapidly evolving space. In preparation for my new position at TCO I’ve been studying the worlds of ergonomics, environment and eco labeling. With  long experience from the IT market I’m used to lots of buzzwords and acronyms, and there are several similarities with the world of product certification.  For example, what does”Green IT” really mean? The definition by TCO Development includes both good usability (work environment) and low impact on the natural environment, but  others define it only by the latter.
 
Moreover, we’re seeing a widening range of  opinions about problems and solutions connected to IT in the environmental space. For instance, is IT use good or bad for the climate? This and other relevant questions about green and usable technology are vital to providing businesses and consumers with ICT products that truly do make a difference.

I’m looking forward to working with those of you already in our international network and welcome those of you interested in green and usable technology to join the conversation here at GreenITedge. I will blog regularly and look forward to your comments about green and usable products.

Sören Enholm

Managing Director

Samsung announces first TCO Certified Netbook

Tags: Green IT, ICT products, laptop, Netbook, Notebook, TCO Certified, usability

 – mercury free, ultra energy-efficient and ergonomically designed
The Samsung N120 ultralight netbook is today announced as the first in the world to achieve the leading environmental and usability standard, TCO Certified. Free from mercury and other hazardous materials, offering outstanding energy efficiency and ergonomically designed keyboard and display – the N120 now adds the worlds toughest environmental and usability certifications – TCO Certified – to its list of features. See http://www.tcodevelopment.com to visit our press room for full info.

Green IT becomes greener with the usability aspect

Tags: climate conscience, climate smart, CO2 emissions, combine usability and environmental aspects, computer display, energy consumption, frustration, Green IT, hazardous substances, ICT products, image quality, standby, sustainable IT, usability

The buzz word within the ICT industry has during the last 18^th month been Green IT and now it seems the trend it moving to include another buzz word; Sustainable IT. This trend is of course very positive.

In the discussions of Green IT so far there has been a lot talk about lower energy consumption. Low energy consumption is an important factor to reduce the CO2 emissions, but focusing only on lower energy consumption for a computer display can mean lower image quality.

It’s simple – a product with high performance and good usability has a longer life span and is less likely to enter the waste stream prematurely. This is another important environmental aspect that we unfortunately not see too much of in the discussion of Green IT or Sustainable IT.

No trade off between usability and environment
My point is that truly sustainable ICT products also must include the aspect of usability. A product that performs well and has low energy consumptions as well as low levels of hazardous substances is the best choice for the environment. Therefore there should not be any trade off between usability and environment aspects for ICT products!

What about products that don’t work if yoy try to be climate smart?
Last week I had a personal experience of usability vs. environmental aspects when I tried to be climate smart by switching off the printer at home. The printer is in standby mode 24 hours a day. Standby means less energy consumption but still it consumes energy, therefore I switched it off. The pleasure of a silent office and a good environmental conscience was on top when the printer was off. However there were no feelings of pleasure the next day when I was going to print a document. I had switched the printer on again, the control panel showed that the document was in the line for getting printed and that the printer was connected – but I did not get the document printed!  This doubly frustrating – firstly for not being able to get my documents printed and sceondly,  that I unnecessarily cause CO2 emissions because the printer doesn’t work if I switch it off properly.

Do you have similar experience of technology that makes it impossible to combine usability and environmental aspects? Let me know.

Make your comment here, or e-mail: birgitta.halvarsson@tco.se