EPEAT, the eco-certification label that has taken the computer world by storm, announced plans to create a certification to address the energy use, materials use, and end-of-life issues for television sets.
The
Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool, administered by the
Green Electronics Council, currently certifies the environmental attributes of computer monitors and desktop and laptop computer systems, and will soon also including printers and other imaging systems.
Now, after a vote of the members of the consortium for the
IEEE 1680 standards, under which EPEAT for computers is the flagship certification, the standard will also expand to include television sets, although the vote was fiercely resisted by the television manufacturing companies represented in the coalition,
according to the New York Times.
Among the companies involved in developing the EPEAT standards are big names in retail like Wal-Mart and Best Buy, government entities including the U.S. EPA and Energy Star, and environmental groups like the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Electronics Takeback Coalition, and the Center for Environmental Health.
The EPEAT-for-TV standards will follow the same general guidelines of the existing EPEAT standard, which rates products based on several environmental categories: reduced or no use of toxic chemicals; use of recycled plastics, bio-based plastics and recyclable materials; ease of recycling, dismantling and re-use at the end of life; energy efficiency; minimal and minimally toxic packaging; and overall corporate environmental performance.
As we found in our
State of Green Business Report earlier this year, EPEAT certifications have boomed in recent months: in the 11 months between December 2007 and November 2008, certifications grew from just over 700 to nearly 1000. Even more promising is the fact that the growth shows a "race to the top:" most new certifications came in the Gold and Silver-level certifications, rather than the lowest Bronze-level rankings.
And televisions are certainly ripe for a solid environmental standard; as I
reported last week, e-waste collections largely end up netting old, highly toxic monitors, which while technically illegal to export for processing, often find their ways overseas to be dismantled in dangerous conditions. And new, flat-panel monitors are no better: plasma televisions are three times the energy-hogs of CRT TVs, and LCD systems use
43 times the energy of the tubes of yore.
And on top of that, a report out last fall identified nitrogen trifluoride -- a key chemical used in the manufacture of LCD systems -- as a greenhouse gas
17,000 times more potent than carbon dioxide.
This Standard will define environmental performance for televisions, television combination units, and component television units, relating to reduction or elimination of environmentally sensitive materials, materials selection, design for end of life, lifecycle extension, energy conservation, end of life management, corporate performance, packaging, and other performance categories determined by a decision of the Working Group.
More details about EPEAT in general are online at
EPEAT.net; details of the EPEAT-for-TV standard are at
IEEE.org.
