Industry Notes
New Electronics Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT) standards for TV sets and imaging products like copiers and scanners are being developed and probably will be released this year, Jeff Omelchuck, founder and director of the Green Electronics Council, which runs…
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the EPEAT program, said Thursday at the Greener Gadgets conference in New York. Products based on the standards should reach store shelves by 2011, he said. Setting the standard, with the participation of many green groups and CE manufacturers, hasn’t been easy, Omelchuck said. “This is a really fascinating public dialogue among hundreds of people of very different backgrounds duking it out over what is practical, what is environmentally preferable for electronic products. It’s a very heated debate in many areas. It’s a very powerful process and it’s wearing many people out.” EPEAT started as a guide for “institutional” purchasers of electronics products to gauge which gear was the most environmentally sound, Omelchuck said. It’s quickly becoming the de facto “global green certification system” on electronics, yet “it’s relatively unknown” to consumers because it hasn’t been promoted, he said. It behooves consumers to give manufacturers “a reason to go green,” Omelchuck said. “Unless we as consumers demonstrate a purchasing preference for greener products, identified credibly and soundly” through programs like EPEAT, manufacturers “simply have no reason to do it,” he said.