How to Buy Green Electronics

To follow up on Jacob’s blog, there is EPEAT that ranks the electronic products on the American side, but also the EU Flower that awards computers on the European side. For instance, in the product category “Notebooks”, ASUS just received the European Flower, whereas Toshiba is ranked among the best companies according to EPEAT for one of its notebooks.

After a quick look on their websites, both organisations, the EPEAT and the EU Flower, are independent structures that seem to assess the electronic products according to similar life-cycle criteria. On the other hand, when looking at the EU Flower database, there are only two products in the category “portable computers and personals computers”.Another point worth mentioning is the Greenpeace barometer. They periodically rank the best (and the worst) electronic producers according to life-cycle principles. This barometer has been running for two years now and 10 guides (or rankings) have been published. Nokia is in the leading position at the moment.

Finally, there are of course all the self-declared labels, where the producers award themselves according to their own criteria. An example is Philips’ Greenthink logo. Adding to confusion? Greenwash? Or good intention to improve their products? À propos, Philips is lagging behind in the Greenpeace ranking “due to regressive lobbying against the principle of Individual Producer Responsibility in an EU consultation on the revision of the WEEE Directive” and e-waste criteria. On the other hand, the company holds the EPEAT silver medal for some flat screens.

Personally, as a consumer, I think I’d rather rely on EPEAT, the Flower or Greenpeace.

• EPEAT
• EU Flower
• Greenpeace Guide to greener electronics 

No Comments » | Tags: computers, electronics
Posted by Estelle on Friday, November 28th, 2008 | Permalink |

EPEAT on FOX

Here’s a good article on Fox News (yes I know) about the environmental impacts of computers. There’s a lot of nasty little chemicals in these things, but we can’t really work without them any more.

It’s an example of a product that is ideally suited for an ecolabel, and EPEAT is really rising to the challenge. Well done!

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1 Comment » | Tags: electronics
Posted by Jacob on Monday, November 24th, 2008 | Permalink |

Towards sustainable mobility?

While Nissan is applying a self-declared ecolabel to its cars and consumers are still waiting for an independent certification awarding this industry (see previous blog), the Swedish company producing alternative fuel Fordon Gas Sverige AB has been awarded by the renown Nordic Ecolabel for its methane-based fuel.

According to the Nordic Ecolabel, this fuel is composed of 50% of fossil natural gas and 50% of biogas from digestion plants. The demand for alternative fuel in the automotive industries is rapidly growing in Sweden with 15 000 cars and buses using methane-based fuel. This demand is greatly generated through green public procurement approach, where public authorities are looking for reliable standards for their purchasing.

But: How far can eco-labels stimulate the development of alternative fuels? Are alternative fuels the right technology to move towards sustainable mobility and cut down the environmental impacts coming from the transport sector? Just think about the comparative value between some of the Swedish trains holding the ecolabel Bra Miljöval (Good Environmental Choice), and cars and buses running with methane holding the Nordic Ecolabel.

For the complete articles of the news:

http://www.svanen.nu/Default.aspx?tabName=NewsDetail&newsid=59701

Bra Miljöval: http://www.naturskyddsforeningen.se/

No Comments » | Tags: alternative fuel, car, sustainable mobility, transport
Posted by Estelle on Thursday, November 20th, 2008 | Permalink |

Carbon vs Calories

For years, the food industry has been listing the nutritional information of packaged food. Things like vitamin content, calories, minerals, sugar, salt, etc.

Now the ‘Smart Choices Program’ has come up with a way to make it easier for consumers to make smart nutrition choices. It’s simple:

The labels will have two parts. First, there will be a green check mark
and the “Smart Choices Program” label for foods that meet certain
nutritional requirements within some categories. The other part
highlights the calories per serving and the servings per container.

woudn’t it be cool to add a ‘Green choices’ program to to this? Maybe we can get the Smart choices guys to give us back our colour : )

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Posted by Jacob on Monday, November 10th, 2008 | Permalink |

carbon podiatry in the UK

The standard behind the label: enter PAS 2050.

Launched on the 28 of October has a label that looks bit more fun than its geeky name (in standards-land PAS stands for “Publicly Available Specification”, well it is from BSI British Standards).

This is the next iteration of The Carbon Trust’s label trialed in 2007. The problem, according to the Guardian’s interview the Carbon Trust’s chief executive Tom Delay, was that many companies simply didn’t know their product’s carbon footprint. The PAS 2050 standard was created to enable that measurement of greenhouse gas emissions, for the whole life cycle of the product.As ever, calculating the “use phase” emissions from many products is really tricky. A nice british example for you - turns out that how you cook potatoes makes a big difference to the final results - boiled, baked, fried, microwaved… On their website, The Carbon Trust offers some tips:”Help to reduce this footprint: roasting or baking these potatoes creates approx. 200g more Co2 than boiling or microwaving them, and keep the lid on while boiling”.Ok mum, will do.     

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Posted by Anastasia on Saturday, November 8th, 2008 | Permalink |

How much Carbon in that Orange?

An Israeli company, Mehadrin, plans to add Carbon labelling to its Oranges. Looks like one kilogram of oranges produced in Israel and consumed in the UK uses about 125 kg of carbon emissions.

Not to compare apples, but is that good? bad? medium? Do these measurements add value to the consumer if they aren’t relative to something? Like an apple grown in the UK?

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Posted by Jacob on Friday, November 7th, 2008 | Permalink |