Green IT Edge » IT products

Fair IT – an increasing demand from IT purchasers

Birgitta Halvarsson — Mon, 09 May 2011 15:13:25 +0000

Last Saturday May 7th, people all over Europe and around the world joined the European organization makeITFair’s international Make IT fair action day. The goal of the action day was to improve the lives of workers around the globe who are working long hours for poor pay to satisfy our constant demands for the latest electronic gadgets.

makeITfair is a European project focusing on the electronics industry, especially on consumer electronics like mobile phones, laptops and MP3 players. They want to let young people across Europe know about the labor abuses and environmental problems that are going on right now around the world – just to satisfy our demand for all the latest electronic gadgets.

Fair IT – a key factor for competitive advantage
It’s a very urgent issue that makeITfair is raising. But this is an issue that are relevant to all purchasers of IT products – not only young consumers. At TCO Development we daily discuss this issue with IT purchasers from private as well as public sector. Many organizations have understand that one of the key factors for their competitive advantage is to have ambitious goals on social responsibility which also includes good working conditions for the labor in the manufacturing process. The company’s policy on CSR is often reflected in their purchase specifications also for IT equipment, hence Fair IT is on the agenda for professional purchasers!

Certifications a way to influence the industry towards sustainabile IT
TCO Certified – a certification for ICT products designed for both usability and the environment, introduced in 2009 a criteria on proven commitment in social responsibility in the manufacturing process. The criteria was a first step and wasn’t particularly strict, but 1 in 4 IT brands didn’t work with these issues before and they had to start working on improving the working conditions in the manufacturing process in order to qualify for the TCO Certified certification. So by asking for TCO Certified products you can influence the industry towards sustainable IT. Next time the criteria document will be updated the SR criteria will be stricter. On TCO Development’s website you can read more about the criteria on social responsibility.

Celebrate Earth Hour 24 hours 365 days

Birgitta Halvarsson — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 15:50:41 +0000

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.

Santa Claus cares about technology for you and the planet

Birgitta Halvarsson — Thu, 23 Dec 2010 15:45:09 +0000

This afternoon I had the opportunity to look into the office of Santa Claus at the NK department store in Stockholm. As you can imagine the office was pretty busy this afternoon, the day before Christmas Eve.

As Santa Claus is famous world wide for being a caring person, I wasn’t surprise to see that his computer display wasn’t just an ordinary display; it was of course a TCO Certified computer display. A display that is designed for the benefit of both the users and the environment.

Why don’t you follow Santa’s example and decide that you next IT-product should also be designed for both the users and the environment!

From all of us to all of you:

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Santa Claus' office in Stockholm

Today – A First for the Green Desktop

Clare Hobby — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 13:02:38 +0000

Today we launch the new TCO certification for desktop computers: TCO Certified Desktops 3.0. Dell’s OptiPlex 980 is the first desktop in the world to be awarded with the new TCO Certified designation for environmental and high performance design. TCO Certified Desktops 3.0 is the third and the latest TCO criteria document for desktop computers. The environmental requirements are much tougher in TCO Certified compared with the former TCO’05 Desktops. All TCO Certified products are rigorously tested by an independent laboratory for low levels of energy consumption, noise and electromagnetic emissions as well as minimal environmental impact. These high performance products are also intended to reduce the global E-waste problem as they are designed for longer life and for recycling at end of life. Dell’s achievement of TCO Certified is also a validation of their ongoing, active commitment to Corporate Social Responsibility, a key aspect of the TCO Certification.

Go to the full announcement here.

How Green is your iPad ?

Clare Hobby — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 20:25:41 +0000

A lot of talk the past weeks has been about the iPad – the latest in Apple’s series of highly anticipated devices designed to change the way we use and interact with technology. At the recent Display Search US Flat Panel Display conference, industry leaders and analysts were labeling the iPad a success, failure and game changer – opinion really depended on who you were talking to !

People have begun asking me – “is the iPad green?”. My answer – “Compared to what ?”

Here is a product that seems to create a middle category between smart phone and Notebook PC. So, the green question can be seen in a couple of ways:

what green attributes does the device itself feature ? In itself, energy efficiency and recyclable materials can make for an environmentally preferable product.
Will people buy the iPad in addition to a smart phone and Notebook PC? If we are adding more products to our already extensive electronics portfolios, how sustainable is that ?

Scheduled for an April 3 launch in the US, it will be interesting to see how the iPad takes off in the market – and whether it can be part of a green ICT solution.

US Flat Panel Display Conference set for next week

Clare Hobby — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 16:47:33 +0000

The annual “meeting of the minds” in the display industry will meet next week to discuss industry trends, analyze market opportunities and forecast the future of the display and TV business around the world. The annual Display Search US Flat Panel Display Conference offers manufacturers, channel partners and industry analysts the chance to explore current and future markets for display products. TCO will be there and be assured, there will be plenty of talk about Green IT solutions. Look for my blog posts direct from the conference. For more information log onto www.displaysearch.com

LCD desktop monitor production highest since 2008

Clare Hobby — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 03:23:16 +0000

January LCD monitor production for top PC and monitor brands about 85% of the market was 12.5 M, the highest level in more than a year, as noted in the newly announced DisplaySearch Monthly Desktop Monitor Brand and OEM Production Report. Additionally, near-term production build-plans show that March could be the highest monthly production of LCD monitors on record, reaching over 12.9M.
Read the article here

Is Industry Collaboration the Future of Green IT?

Clare Hobby — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 03:25:54 +0000

While major electronics brands compete to develop more eco-friendly PC products, some areas of Green IT are actually shifting towards greater industry collaboration. A couple of recent stories caught my attention. Firstly, at CES I attended an Electronics Takeback roundtable, hosted by the US EPA and featuring senior environmental managers from Panasonic, Best Buy and L.G. When discussing the challenges of implementing a cohesive takeback infrastructure, industry reps agreed there is a need to work together to create a common eco-system and create efficiencies in how takeback is handled across multiple product categories.

Second, the Green Touch project was announced this week in a cross-industry effort to reduce PC processory energy use 1000-fold. In real terms, this would mean being able to run the world’s communications networks, including the internet, for nearly three years using the same amount of energy it currently uses in one day. The Green Touch project kicks off in February. More details here

Green – more than just a trend

Martin Soderberg — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 02:41:49 +0000

We hear it all the time from industry. “We have become a green IT company” or “We are the greenest IT company”. Sounds great, but for how long will green be the fashion colour of the industry? Will “going green” be so common that it will lose its value in the market? Well in a way that might be the best thing that could happen, then we could scrap all eco-labels and the consumer could just lean back and buy IT products with a clear conscience…

No, it won’t happen. What we think of as green today might not be green enough tomorrow. Consumers must remain alert and continue to demand greener products to maintain the momentum. But it’s difficult to compare and understand how relevant the claims for going green from the industry are. That’s were the third party label comes in. We’ll find the green products for you. We’re hooked on green and we’ll make sure it keeps getting greener.

Help in the green jungle!

Helena Nordin — Tue, 26 May 2009 15:13:38 +0000

All of you working with designing IT equipment are well aware of the enourmous work task to keep track on all the different regulations and product standards out there. Most IT products are designed for an international market and therefore need to comply with the fast moving market of environmental legislation globally. Just one example is the European Directive called RoHS (Restrictions on Hazardous Substances) that came in to force in 2006 that now is being implemented all over the world with similar but not exactly the same legislation. To just understand the small differences between China RoHS and the European RoHS takes a lot of time to evaluate and then to feel confident that your product will comply with both of them is also a costly and time consuming process. And with the focus on Green IT and Global warming there is no doubt that we will see much more of environmental legislation in the future.

Luckily there are today internet based tools to help you sort this out! One of them is the Irish based company Compliance and Risks with their tool called C2P (Compliance to Products) http://www.complianceandrisks.com/. On top of monitoring all the different national legislations world wide you will from now on also be able to follow all what is happening with the TCO Certified standards we develop! TCO Development was recently assigned Data Partner to Compliance and Risks and will regularly update their database with all relevant information about TCO Certified.