EPEAT, EcoLogo join forces on green stamps of approval

The organizations driving two of the best known green product-labeling programs, the Green Electronics Council and EcoLogo, have teamed with the goal of helping to increase the number of products that are listed in EPEAT (the Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool).

Essentially, the collaboration means that manufacturers will be able to have their product registered under EPEAT by working with either organization, which should increase the number of products that are successfully listed. EPEAT just reached the 1,000-product mark for items that are individually rated in its system, which is used by government agencies and businesses to help evaluate products they might be thinking about buying.

There are three levels of EPEAT rating: Bronze, Silver and Gold. The level that a product achieves depends on how many criteria beyond the basic 23 environmental factors it meets. Right now, the rating system considers laptops, monitors, integrated systems and desktops. Servers should be added sometime in the not-so-distant future.