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 Stephen Withers turns his gaze on the world of Apple, with
detours into other aspects of IT and communications as they catch his
attention. |
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Our Blogs Core Dump How green is green IT?
Our Blogs Core Dump How green is green IT? | How green is green IT? |
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| Written by Stephen Withers | |
| Wednesday, 09 January 2008 | |
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Page 2 of 2 For example, most of us are agreed that it would be a good idea to get rid of mercury from list sources (eg, in flat panel displays). EPEAT only mandates that vendors declare the amount of mercury; setting a low threshold or eliminating it entirely is only optional. Similarly, manufacturers aren't required to use post-consumer recycled plastics or renewable/bio-based plastics, only to declare how much they use.Even if a vendor wants to reach EPEAT Gold standard - as HP has achieved for several new business PCs including the 2510p desktop and 2710p notebook - it can still fail to meet seven of the optional criteria I'm not questioning HP's basic intentions, nor am I singling out the company for any reason other than its latest announcement. But I am suspicious of 'greenwash' and I can't help feeling that the 2005 baseline could have been chosen to make it easier to reach that impressive-sounding 25 percent goal. For example, a much bigger proportion of PCs were sold with CRT displays in 2005 than they were in 2007, so there's a significant power saving already. It also removes a significant quantity of lead in favour of much smaller amounts of mercury. My concerns are that too much spin may be being put on very real efforts by engineers to improve the environmental characteristics of PCs and other IT equipment, and that buyers may be misled by some of the certifications and third-party reports in this area.
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