One World Trade Center …

        One World Trade Center                                                  www.greenelectronicscouncil.org
        121 SW Salmon St., Suite 210                                                     Voice: (503) 279-9382
        Portland OR 97204                                                                 Fax: (503) 279-9381



    The Environmental Benefits of the Purchase or Sale of
             EPEAT Registered Products in 2006
Introduction
This is the first annual report that the Green Electronics Council plans to produce to
estimate the life-cycle environmental benefits from the purchase or sale of EPEAT
registered electronic products. EPEAT is a system for identifying environmentally
preferable personal computers and monitors that is managed by the Green Electronics
Council. The product registry and more information can be found at www.epeat.net. In
EPEAT, participating manufacturers report to GEC the number of EPEAT registered
products that they sell each year.

The tool used to make the estimates is the Electronics Environmental Benefits Calculator
(EEBC), which was developed by the University of Tennessee Center for Clean Products
and Clean Technologies under a Cooperative Agreement with the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency. The EEBC's primary input is the number and type of EPEAT
registered products purchased. The tool then calculates the environmental benefits that
result from the purchase of that many EPEAT registered products compared to the same
number of a "conventional product."1 The calculations include upstream impacts from
raw material extraction and processing, product manufacture, and product use and
disposition.2 The "environmental benefits" reported below were obtained by entering into
the EEBC the total number of EPEAT registered products sold in 2006 as reported by the
manufacturers.

The EEBC is an excellent tool and has been carefully reviewed by EPA and other
independent scientists. However, calculating the environmental benefits of products is
notoriously difficult, subjective, and subject to misinterpretation. We encourage readers
to carefully review the methodology as described below and in the EEBC itself in order
to correctly interpret the results.

Executive Summary
Improvements in, and the increased use of, information technology has enabled
significant improvements in the standard of living of much of the developed world and
likely is a key to long term sustainability. However, given today's industrial technology
and infrastructure, electronic products including personal computers and monitors also
have significant negative environmental impacts. Like all products, these impacts come
1
  The EEBC assumes that the ENERGY STAR® power management features are enabled and used by the
purchaser throughout the estimated 4-year life of computer desktops and monitors. The environmental
benefits of EPEAT registered products will be significantly less if power management features are not
enabled.
2
  The use of life cycle data in benefits calculations varies depending on the metric and EPEAT criterion.
For a complete summary of benefits calculations, see Appendix A.


Green Electronics Council                                                                                   1
Environmental Benefits of Buying EPEAT Registered Products - 2006                        rev. 17-Jun-07


from most stages of the product's life: extraction of raw materials from the earth and their
refinement, manufacturing processes to turn these raw materials into a finished product,
use (and often re-use) of the product, and ultimately end-of-life collection, treatment, and
disposal and/or recycling. On top of that, computers and most electronics have supply
chains and customer bases that span the globe, so transportation throughout the product's
lifecycle is also significant.

While the environmental impacts are complex and may be distributed in space and time,
from a user's perspective there are only a few high-leverage "decision points" that drive
these impacts. Users can decide:
    · What to buy;
    · How to use the product during its life;
    · How and when to dispose of the product when they are done with it.

Of these decision points, the purchase decision is arguably the highest leverage.
Manufacturers design products that they hope will sell. 90% of the environmental
attributes of a product are determined by its design. Design determines the materials
used in the product, largely determines the supply chain, the production processes,
strongly affects the product's energy consumption during its life, and affects the
efficiency of end-of-life recovery. By purchasing environmentally preferable products
purchasers send strong signals to manufacturers to design and manufacture greener
products.

For electronic products the challenge has been how to identify environmentally
preferable products. For laptops, desktops, and monitors that challenge has been met by
EPEAT. Purchasers can simply specify EPEAT registered products and be assured that
they are buying high performance products with less environmental impact across a
spectrum of environmental attributes. All parties can review the list of EPEAT registered
products and research their environmental attributes at www.epeat.net.

This report is intended to answer the next question: "Does specifying and buying greener
electronics matter?" The answer is clearly a resounding "Yes!" Using the Electronics
Environmental Benefits Calculator (EEBC) tool developed by the University of
Tennessee Center for Clean Products and Clean Technologies under a Cooperative
Agreement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, using the methodology
described in this report, we have calculated the environmental benefits of the purchase of
EPEAT registered products in 2006. Even though this represents less than six months of
purchases and some manufacturers didn't join EPEAT (and therefore had no EPEAT
registered products) until late in the year, the magnitude of the environmental benefits is
staggering.

By specifying and buying EPEAT registered laptops, desktops, and monitors in 2006
rather than "conventional products", the following environmental benefits will accrue
over the lifetime of those products3:
3
 The EEBC assumes a 4-year lifetime when calculating energy savings for desktops and monitors, and a 3-
year lifetime for notebooks. The figures were calculated using the EEBC Version 1.1, dated 4/18/07


Green Electronics Council                                                                             2
Environmental Benefits of Buying EPEAT Registered Products - 2006              rev. 17-Jun-07


    ·   Save 13.7 billion kWh of electricity, enough to power 1.2 million U.S. homes for
        a year;
    ·   Save 24.4 million metric tons of primary materials, equivalent to the weight of
        189 million refrigerators;
    ·   Prevent 56.5 million metric tons of air emissions (including GHG emissions);
    ·   Prevent 1.07 million metric tons of carbon equivalent GHG emissions, equivalent
        to removing 852,000 cars from the road for a year;
    ·   Prevent 118,000 metric tons of water pollutant emissions;
    ·   Reduce the amount of toxic materials used by 1,070 metric tons, equivalent to the
        weight of 534,000 bricks, including enough mercury to fill 157,000 household
        fever thermometers;
    ·   Avoid the disposal of 41,100 metric tons of hazardous waste, equivalent to the
        weight of 20.5 million bricks.

These benefits are real improvements realized in offices and communities around the
world over the life of these products. By buying EPEAT registered products purchasers
are keeping massive quantities of pollutants out of the world's air, water, and landfills,
and conserving resources.

Further improvements can be realized by extending the life of EPEAT products and
recycling products responsibly at the end of their life.

Background and Methodology
Electronics Environmental Benefits Calculator
The tool used to make the estimates is the Electronics Environmental Benefits Calculator
(EEBC), which was developed for the Federal Electronics Challenge by the University of
Tennessee Center for Clean Products and Clean Technologies under a Cooperative
Agreement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The methodology embodied
in this tool is described below and must be understood in order to correctly interpret the
results. The tool was developed to enable purchasers and users of electronic products to
calculate the environmental benefit of their purchase, use, and end-of-life management
practices. The EEBC was designed to be compatible with EPEAT, and its primary input
related to the purchase of products is the number of EPEAT registered products of each
type purchased. The tool is available to the public at
http://eerc.ra.utk.edu/ccpct/eebc/eebc.html.

EPEAT is a system to help purchasers identify environmentally preferable electronic
products. Today it applies only to laptop and desktop computers and computer monitors
but projects are being planned to expand it to other electronic product types over time.
EPEAT was developed over a period of almost three years by a large group of
stakeholders including environmental advocacy organizations, institutional purchasers,
electronics manufacturers, U.S. EPA and other government officials, electronics
recyclers, researchers, and others in a process facilitated by an independent non-profit
supported by a grant from the U.S. EPA. EPEAT rates products as EPEAT Gold,
EPEAT Silver, or EPEAT Bronze based on the product's environmental attributes. The


Green Electronics Council                                                                    3
Environmental Benefits of Buying EPEAT Registered Products - 2006              rev. 17-Jun-07


list, or registry, of EPEAT registered products and more information on EPEAT is
available at www.epeat.net. Many institutional purchasers of information technology
(IT) equipment, including the US Federal Government, require or prefer to buy EPEAT
registered products. Manufacturers voluntarily participate and register their products in
EPEAT to gain access to this market.

Manufacturers that participate in EPEAT are required to annually report the global unit
sales of their EPEAT registered products to EPEAT through an industry trade association
that acts as a data consolidator. The manufacturers reported sales for U.S., Canada, and
global total sales. This report is based on global sales of EPEAT registered products.
The first annual sales report covered the period from when EPEAT became operational in
July 2006 to the end of 2006. These reported sales were entered into the EEBC, which
calculated the environmental benefits of the sale or purchase of all EPEAT registered
products sold in this time frame. The EEBC also has the capability to calculate the
benefits of use and end of life management practices of a computer user. These EEBC
data inputs were left at their default values for the calculations in this report (further
benefits can accrue if users adopt responsible reuse and recycling practices).

Manufacturers reported their total sales of the products that they had registered in EPEAT
- not the sales to purchasers that required EPEAT, or the sales because of EPEAT. In
addition, many of the environmental criteria of EPEAT are also requirements of other
programs or countries, including Energy Star and the EU's RoHS and WEEE regulations.
Therefore the environmental benefits reported cannot be characterized as the
environmental benefits solely of, or because of, EPEAT. They should be understood to
be the environmental benefits that have accrued from the purchase or sale of EPEAT
registered products. EPEAT has played a role in realizing these benefits but can claim
little credit for them. The credit lies with researchers who have developed enabling
technologies, with regulators, other programs, environmental advocates, and purchasers
who have demanded greener products, and with manufacturers who have responded to
this demand by designing and manufacturing greener products.

Of particular note are Energy Star and the EU's RoHS and WEEE regulations. Energy
Star has been a very effective program for recognizing energy saving products, for
increasing consumer awareness of the importance of energy efficiency, and for providing
effective standards and a market incentive for manufacturers to make more energy
efficient products. While Energy Star is a program of the US government it has been
adopted by many countries around the world and has global impact. Similarly, although
the European Union's Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) and Waste Electrical
and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) regulations carry the force of law only in the EU they
have effectively transformed the manufacturing and recycling of electronic products
globally.

The environmental benefits reported herein come from the purchase of EPEAT registered
products. However, the benefits accrue from all phases of the life of the products
themselves. For instance, by buying an energy efficient computer the user (and the
environment) benefits from reduced power consumption over the life of the product, and



Green Electronics Council                                                                   4
Environmental Benefits of Buying EPEAT Registered Products - 2006                           rev. 17-Jun-07


reduced unit energy consumption lowers the upstream material inputs and emissions
associated with power generation. Similarly, by buying a computer containing less toxic
materials these resources will not be used or released into the environment at the end of
the product's life.4 So, the reported benefits are the result of an informed purchase
decision but are realized over time and in other places.

The EEBC estimates environmental benefits for eight metrics:
    Energy use;
    Greenhouse gas emissions;
    Primary material use;
    Total air emissions;
    Water emissions;
    Toxic material use;
    Hazardous waste generation;
    Solid waste generation; and
    Costs, where feasible.

The EEBC calculates the benefits of EPEAT-registered products by comparing their
attributes, such as material composition and energy consumption, to the attributes of
"conventional" or "baseline" products. The attributes of conventional products were
defined using multiple published sources, including available life cycle analyses, while
the attributes of EPEAT registered products were defined by the EPEAT criteria. For
example, an EPEAT-registered product is assumed to meet the European Union's
Restriction on Hazardous Substances (RoHS), while a conventional product does not.
Thus, in the case of lead, the baseline desktop computer unit is assumed to contain lead-
based solder, while EPEAT-registered products are assumed to be lead-free.5 The
researchers who developed the EEBC anticipate updating the definitions of the
"conventional products" every few years as products improve, subject to the availability
of funding to do so.

The environmental benefits calculations are limited to those EPEAT criteria that can be
quantified for the eight selected metrics. The environmental benefits of some EPEAT
criteria are not easily quantified (e.g., ease of product disassembly, corporate reporting
criteria, providing a product take back option), and therefore, are not included in EEBC.
Below is a summary of the EPEAT criteria included in the EEBC calculations. Appendix
A provides a detailed explanation of which benefits (or metrics) were calculated for each
criterion.

The EEBC allows the user to select the EPEAT registration tier, or specify which EPEAT
criteria the selected product(s) meet. When the EPEAT registration tier (bronze, silver or

4
  Using fewer toxic materials will also result in less mining of these materials, mining wastes, and wastes
generated during product manufacture. The current version of the EEBC, however, does not calculate these
upstream environmental benefits for toxic material use.
5
  Nominal lead levels (