Green credentials drive tech consumer decisions
The environmental credentials of technology products are having a major impact on consumers' purchasing decisions, according to a new survey from Ipsos.
The online survey of over 1,000 US consumers found that over half regard a technology product's environmental credentials as influential when making purchasing decisions.
Specifically, 57 percent rated the presence of the Energy Star label as influential, while 48 percent said that manufacturer's recycling policies would affect purchasing decisions.
Over a third of respondents identified six separate environmental issues as influential factors in purchasing decisions, highlighting the extent to which green factors are emerging as "a critical-mass consumer consideration", particularly amongst higher earners.
However, while pressure is mounting on technology companies to enhance their environmental credentials consumers do not yet appear to be using green factors to differentiate between brands.
When asked which technology brands they associated as being green respondents tended to opt for high-profile brands that they encounter regularly, such as Dell, HP, Microsoft, Apple, Sony and IBM, despite considerable differences in these vendors' environmental policies. Microsoft, Apple and Sony in particular managed to attain top spots in the ranking despite being heavily criticised by environmentalists in recent months for the environmental impact of some of their products and practices.
"It's something of a 'halo index,' in that there's precious little information available to consumers for them to really assess how green one tech firm is versus another," explained Todd Board, senior vice president of Ipsos Insight's media, entertainment and technology practice. "So when we see a Kodak, Sony or IBM emerge here, to some extent we're seeing more generalised brand affinity being transferred to this green dimension."
He added that this halo effect meant that while green factors were increasingly important to customers it would prove difficult for manufacturers to build a commercial advantage from the green technology trend.
"The interesting paradox for the market leaders, or those who would be, is that this may rapidly become a table-stakes expectation for many consumers – 'of course, I expect prominent brand X to care about the environment and act accordingly'," he explained. "However, while this is emerging as a cost-of-entry issue, it isn't clear that any one tech firm can carve out sustainable differentiation around green behaviours and positioning."
Everything you wanted to know about green IT (but were afraid to ask)
Regular readers will know that over the past few months BusinessGreen has run a series of live web seminars on the emergence of the green IT department in conjunction with its sister titles IT Week and Computing.
Covering the reasons for more environmentally-friendly IT kit, the best practices for deploying such technologies, the companies that are already embracing green IT and the most responsible means of disposing of old kit this series of online discussion shows featured a broad range of expert panellists and attracted a wide audience of IT professionals.
Now to mark the end of the web seminars IT Week this week features a special report exploring the key issues raised by our panellists and detailing some of the environmental best practices IT managers should now be embracing.
You can read about why IT as an industry is leading the way in the transition towards low carbon technologies on our dedicated microsite here, read our experts' answers to viewers' green IT questions here, read the case against renewable energy-powered datacentres here, take a look at the case for virtualisation here, and get an insight into why re-using old IT kit is a greener option than recycling it here.
Also keep an eye out for an additonal special report on September 20th in BusinessGreen's sister title Computing looking at some of the IT departments that are pioneering greener business models and technologies.
Interview: Zonbu chief predicts business market for "green PC"
The consumer-focused thin client-like device has attracted plenty of column inches. Now Zonbu CEO Gregoire Gentil is keen to appease customer concerns over online storage and reach out to business users
BusinessGreen: Where did the idea for a consumer-focused thin client come from?
Gregoire Gentil: Zonbu is not technically a thin client as it runs its OS and applications from a local memory card – it is designed to be an environmentally responsible and hassle-free computer. Like many people I had been providing technical support to friends and family whose PCs crashed or had problems with spyware and viruses. Most of these people needed a familiar but self-supporting computer, so Zonbu was developed to meet this need. Our service ensures each customer transparent back-up; a fully updated OS and applications without them having to lift a finger; unlimited internet support; and free overnight hardware replacement limited warranty. Also by using online storage and a low power consumption chip set, our hardware can be much more energy efficient and compact than a standard PC, whilst providing customers with far more reliability and secure storage of their important personal data. We provide a solution that allows people to just enjoy their computer without technical or environmental worries.
Which customers are you targeting the device at and why?
We're targeting the 'second PC' market. More than 60 percent of households in the US own more than two computers at home. Households or families want to extend computer usage to more family members but without the frustrations of maintaining an extra PC. Customers tell us our hardware replacement policy and automatic updates are very appealing when it comes to buying an additional computer. The ongoing service with Zonbu means giving your kids or parents a PC is not the beginning of your problems. Also our strong green credentials are definitely resonating with consumers looking to lower their energy usage and be more conscious the resources they use.
How much customer interest have you seen?
Since we started in early 2006 we've seen a great deal of interest. We are currently fine tuning the complete product so we are not marketing heavily yet. However, a number of aspects of Zonbu have caught people's attention – our green approach and use of open source software have both brought us many 'early adopter' customers. Also with our ongoing updates approach they understand there's no real risk to buying now.
What would your response be to critics who maintain consumers will always want their own PC with their own computing power and own storage?
Do you have a Yahoo or Gmail account? Clearly customers are becoming much more comfortable with online services and storage. Once someone has had a drive or whole system crash, they become far more open to the value of properly managed and backed up storage. This also has the benefit of making their files available to them from any web browser. However, with Zonbu the actual computing power is local so our customers can even work offline if they need to. Last, unlike Gmail or Yahoo, users' data is encrypted on our Internet servers and our privacy policy strongly states that we don't crawl their data for advertising purposes.
Do you see this product appealing to corporate customers as well as consumers?
Our initial focus is on home users looking for a secondary PC, but yes we can see it expanding into the corporate market. There are certainly some commercial situations that would have similar needs to the consumers - for example internet access in lobbies or hotels, or reception desks or other areas of the business where no specialist applications are needed. The low power consumption, compact size and lack of support needed makes Zonbu a very appealing option for some business uses. We are constantly developing the system to offer customers an ever better service and we will also offer other hardware options to appeal to a wider range of customers.
Is the product available in Europe?
Yes.
Do you operate your own datacentres to host the software? How energy efficient are the datacentres you use to handle customers apps etc? How do you ensure these remain efficient?
We currently use Amazon S3 servers. The scale of their operation ensures an outstanding energy efficiency.
Could PC management software succeed where turn off campaigns fail?
Sumir Karayi, CEO at desktop management software specialist 1E, insists that automation holds key to PC turn off campaigns
BusinessGreen: How big a problem is the issue of PCs being left on over night?
Sumir Karayi: There was a recent US study that showed that 60 percent of PCs are left on any given night. Corporate America has just under 100m PCs, so that is 60m PCs being left on each night. Even if you halve that figure on the assumption that around half of desktops are typically set to hibernate when they are not in use that still means 30 million are fully on. Estimates show that equates to $2bn worth of energy being wasted a year.
How does 1E propose to tackle the problem?
We started ten years ago with a focus on reducing the cost and time of managing Windows for large organisations. We quickly realised there was this issue with being able to remotely turn the PCs on and off, and that is when we developed out first bit of software, SMSWakeUp, which allowed administrators to easily turn machines on over the network. We were working with a customer, Swiss Bank, which found that as soon as they could turn the machines on at night to patch them they realised $4m in energy cost savings. That was a real eye opener and then we started to investigate why machines weren't being turned off and what we could do to address the problem. From there we developed our NightWatchman suite which allows firms to automatically and remotely turn off PCs that have been left on.
Technically how do you turn on a PC that has been switched off?
There is a switch in the settings of the PC called Wake-on-LAN. This switch stays on when you turn off the PC, drawing just one to five watts, and listens out for a network packet called a magic packet, which turns the computer on. The technology is very simple and is industry standard, but when you scale it out to large deployments it becomes very difficult to manage without a high degree of automation.
There are plenty of solutions in this area and as you admit the core technology is pretty simple. Where is the differentiator in your products?
The issue of desktop management has three stakeholders - the CIO, who needs the machines patched, updated and rebooted occasionally; the facilities or CSR manager who wants the energy bill reduced; and the user who don't want their PC turned off when they are using it or downloading files and who don't want data lost when their machine is rebooted. In our opinion most solutions in this area only address one or two of the stakeholders. We wrote NightWatchman to address all these stakeholders, so CIOs have the ability to turn on a machine, patch, and turn it off remotely; facilities gets reporting capabilities to see how much energy is saved; and the user gets a solution that automatically assesses whether the machine is in use before turning it off and saves any files from both the previous save and the state they are in at the time of shut down.
We've all heard about concerns about the environment and energy use, but how much money can really be saved from just turning off a PC?
UK estimates claim it can save an average of £40 per year in energy costs, while Energy Star in the US estimates anything between $25 to $75 a year. Obviously there is a lot of variation depending on energy costs and turn off rates before deployment, but if you consider we are deployed on 7 million seats globally, that is a lot of money.
How much does the software cost?
We have sliding prices based on the size of the deal, but we aim for an ROI within three months. That means you can get the cost back in the form of power savings within three months, and that calculation does not include the soft savings in the form of lower support costs and enhanced security.
Isn't this a classic case of over-engineering. You are providing an automated solution for a problem that wouldn't exist if people just turned off their PCs. Isn't it cheaper and easier for firms to run a campaign to get people to turn off their PCs?
I would entirely recommend that firms have a green communications agenda. But turn off campaigns can't easily report on the savings they achieve and as a result the savings are difficult to validate. What NightWatchman gives you is a clear benchmark from which to base your energy savings. As a result we have been able to do deals where we charge based on the amount of energy saved. Also the fact is that communication campaigns only get you so far and you need an automated solution so that you can reboot remotely and ensure everything is patched correctly.
Some people maintain that turning PCs on and off daily reduces their reliability. Is there any truth in this?
It is an absolute fallacy that turning PCs off and on means they don’t last as long. It is a myth, and in fact the opposite is true as you place less pressure on the moving parts if you turn the machine off.
How do you plan to develop the product portfolio going forward?
We have just released SMSWakeUp version 5, which supports Vista and has improved scalability and enhanced reporting capabilites. We are also about to launch version 5 of NightWatchman, which also features improved reporting capabilities, including predictive reporting that allows a firm to predict the energy savings it could achieve, and also boasts Vista integration designed to exploit the new power saving technology in Vista.
And beyond that?
We are investing heavily in a solution for the datacentre and we aim to have something ready by the end of the year. There is a tendency in the datacentre to save energy by throwing out working servers in favour of new, more energy efficient models, but a lot of savings can be achieved with existing infrastructure through better power management. We want to provide a suite that reports on datacentre energy use and identifies areas of efficiency and inefficiency so you can optimise without decommissioning existing kit. We want to apply the NightWatchman logic to the datacentre environment.
So you'd have a solution that automatically turns off unused servers?
Initially we'd just focus on reporting, but from there adding the automation would be relatively easy.
Are people really going to accept a solution that turns off their servers?
The biggest issue with the datacentre is the mindset change that is required. Most datacentres are 24x7 operations with all the servers running 24x7 and people believe there is a large degree of risk in turning machines off or even just changing processor states to reduce power draw. But this is a hugely inefficient scenario and it is perfectly plausible to turn more machines off when they are not in use. We want to give IT managers the information they need to do this. It won’t come quickly and there is a long road ahead. Many businesses see it as easier to just keep buying more servers, but it is entirely possible technically to turn them off and just turn them on when they are needed. Too many people design a datacentre from the start for maximum capacity. They think "right, I need 10,000 users and I'll design for 10,000 users". They end up with 50 servers online when they could have spent the first year just running two.
About Sumir Karayi
Sumir Karayi is CEO and CTO at windows management software specialist 1E, which he co-founded in 1998.
Previously he had worked managing and supporting PC based networks at Microsoft, Lombard, Reuters and the BBC.
He holds BEng and MSc degrees from Warwick University, specialising in Electronic Engineering and IT for Manufacturing.
Zonbu targets consumers with thin client device
Regular readers will know that BusinessGreen is a big fan of thin clients, the natty little alternatives to PCs that have no moving parts and as a result use a fraction of the energy of their fat client counterparts.
The one big problem with this approach is that while it is well suited to commercial environments they have much less appeal to consumers who tend to like the idea of their own hard drive and their own processing power.
However, it is a problem innovative US start up Zonbu is looking to overcome by marketing its consumer-focused thin clients as "the first environmentally responsible computer".
Rather than trying to explain the concept of thin client computing to its customers the company has instead simply branded its product as an affordable green computer.
The Zonbu device boasts all the green credentials you'd expect from a thin client, such as reduced eWaste and average energy use of 15W that represents one third of the power used by a typical light bulb, while the company also offsets what energy the product's does use and offers a free take back scheme. Moreover,
But where Zonbu has been really clever is in taking the complexity out of the device's software. It provides the open source Zonbu OS and a range of applications, including Firefox, Skype and Evolution, through a subscription package starting from $12.95 a month, ensuring that all the hassle of managing the computer and ensuring it is secure and stable and backed up is handled by Zonbu in its datacentres.
All this means that not only is the system extremely energy efficient, but it is also highly secure and means that users can access their files from any computer with an internet connection.
Unfortunately the device will have to overcome a huge degree of cynicism from computer users wedded to their PCs and Windows OS, but that does not necessarily mean Zonbu will fail and there are certain markets that could yet make the device a success.
Any green consumers are likely to be attracted by the machine's environmental credentials while the hosted software package could appeal to computer users who lack the technical confidence to handle back ups, security patches and the like. The silver surfer market in particular, which often voices a desire for a computer that can simply access the web and provide word processing, is likely to be attracted to a product that is simple to use and boasts a low price point.
And if reduced energy use and low price points aren't enough to attract the customers it also comes in a range of pretty colours!
Review: Bamboo hardware canes eWaste
Of all the innovations undertaken in recent years by the IT industry in the name of environmental sustainability perhaps the strangest is the emergence of the world's first bamboo monitor, keyboard and mouse.
Available in the UK from gadget website Playengine, the TFT monitor, keyboard and mouse have all had their traditional plastic casings replaced with bamboo in a move designed to replace plastics that will sit in landfill sites for a millennia or so with a biodegradable alternative that will also reduce the amount of carbon dioxide released during the products' manufacturing and lifecycle.
The monitor also claims to meet Energy Star standards, while its internal components are lead free and comply with the EU's safety and hazardous substance directives.
Furthermore, any concerns that the product may contribute to deforestation are unfounded, according to the manufacturers, as Bamboo is in fact a fast growing grass, which will replenish itself rapidly.
Meanwhile, no pandas were harmed in the manufacturing of the products as they are made using the Gramineae monocotyledonous plant - a hard variety of bamboo not eaten by the cuddly, but sadly frigid, creatures.
All of which sounds great for the environmentally-minded desktop user. But is this new take on desktop equipment really a revolutionary development, highlighting how a bit of lateral thinking at a product's design stage can wean us off of environmentally damaging plastics? Or is it just another example of a green product that sounds good in principle but is never going to out-perform its more toxic rivals?
BusinessGreen unplugged its plastic-cased monitor and fired up its new 15" Bamboo monitor review model to find out.
The first thing to note is that the new kit really does look smart. There is undoubtedly something more tactile and easy on the eye about wood than plastic and it is easy to imagine the monitor making an eye-catching addition to executive offices and posh reception desks.
However, closer inspection raises immediate questions about the bamboo-casing's durability. The manual claims that bamboo is tougher than other woods, stronger than steel and has been dried at high temperatures and treated to stop rotting and prevent woodworms and insect infestation. But on our review copy one of the joins on the back has sheared away, probably where the wood has dried and expanded, causing a gap where dust could get into the machine.
Playengine insists durability is not an issue and is currently seeing just one percent returns, on a "very successful" level of sales to consumers.
Once up and running it has to be said the monitor stacks up pretty well compared to my usual plastic-cased model.
The 1,024 x 768 native resolution may not the sharpest and the analogue as opposed to digital connection to the PC is also a step down from my usual monitor, but it is more than sufficient for most office work. Meanwhile a quick mid-afternoon check on the top of the monitor when my old model is usually running so hot you could almost fry an egg on it proves the manufacturer's claims that bamboo is good at disipating heat.
The main flaw is that the height and angle does not adjust as much as most plastic models and for my desk the leads weren't long enough. But it is worth noting that these are design issues rather than a problem inherent to the bamboo material – future models must surely feature more adjustable stands.
So are bamboo monitors a viable option for green-minded firms?
Well they are probably too expensive at the moment for many firms to justify. The 15" version we reviewed is normally priced at £199, while the 17" and 19" models costs £223 and £269 respectively. The mouse and keyboard are admittedly a bit cheaper at £18.99 and £21.99 respectively, but Playengine admits it needs to drive down the manufacturer's prices still further if it is to attract widespread corporate interest.
Concerns about durability, resolution and the difficulties in adjusting the monitor's height also reinforce the impression that bamboo monitors are an interesting novelty for consumers but not yet ready for the corporate market. The current incarnation will doubtless appeal to environmentally-minded and image-savvy corner office residents, but these basic design flaws need to be ironed out if it ever expects to break into the corporate mainstream.
However, the monitor's weaknesses are nothing that a better designed stand, higher-end screen, and more investment in build quality could not overcome. There is growing demand for IT kit that is easy to recycle and dispose of and bamboo casings could well prove a valuable part of the solution to the eWaste problem.
HP's Neoware acquisition provides true test of green commitment
Perhaps HP is going to lead the shift towards thin client computing after all.
Barely 72 hours after I posted suggesting HP's claims that it was hugely committed to promoting green, energy efficient thin client computing looked a bit over-blown the company has gone and splashed out $214m to acquire thin client vendor Neoware. Perhaps the HP exec I had been talking to knew something I didn't.
Either way the deal represents a major addition to HP's growing portfolio of green products. Thin clients [pictured, the Neoware e90] have no moving parts and work by simply providing users with a connection to applications hosted on a server - as such they can use around 90 percent less energy than traditional desktop PCs, require far fewer resources during the production process and pose less of an eWaste problem.
It is no exaggeration to claim that when combined with a well managed datacentre to host end user applications thin clients are greener in every way when compared with traditional PCs.
Through the acquisition of Neoware HP now has a fairly complete thin client portfolio, combining Neoware's Linux-based thin client solutions and software with HP's Microsoft Windows XPe and Windows CE alternatives, as well as its virtualised client solutions, such as blade PCs, blade workstations, virtual desktop.
But what will be interesting to see is how HP balances its now reinforced thin client business with its existing desk top division.
The company was quick to announce that Neoware will be integrated into its Business Desktop Unit and insisted that thin clients represent an important "component" in an overall computing strategy, the implication being that it is an overall strategy that still very much includes PCs.
But the big question for customers, green businesses and not least HP is how big a component do thin clients represent?
Pure play thin client vendors have long maintained that the chunk of the PC market that they could eat in to is far, far larger than the PC vendors ever let on. They argue that confining thin clients to their traditional contact centre stronghold is short-sighted and that there are compelling cost, security, maintenance and environmental reasons for having virtually every knowledge worker - and that's most of us these days – using thin clients.
It will be a huge test of HP's new green credentials to see if it continues with Neoware's aggressive evangelising of thin client technology.
Will HP now tell all its major corporate accounts which are unnecessarily running over weight fat clients that the next time they want to refresh their PCs they should instead move to thin clients, as Neoware would surely have done, or will thin clients be forced to play second fiddle to the much larger desktop business?
If it goes with the former option and eulogises the benefits of thin clients regardless of the in-roads the technology may make into its PC business then we might just be seeing a major step in an industry-wide shift towards thin client computing that would almost certainly spark further consolidation in the market and may even mark the beginning of the end for increasingly environmentally unsustainable desktop PCs.
Alternatively, if it goes with the later option, ignores the growing maturity of software-as-a-service applications and continues to push PCs as the default solution for firms' desktop computing requirements then we will all know that HP is not as serious about the environment as it says it is.
It's time for IT to get green
IT may not be in the sights of environmental protestors just yet, but with emissions rising IT departments can't expect to avoid their ire for much longer. Amy Sims argues that a new green IT leadership board could help IT chiefs lead their firms' green transformation.
The airline industry, car owners, and big business are all commonly blamed for causing climate change. But you don't see many scathing headlines about the IT sector killing off the polar bears, or protestors gathered outside a business demanding that they cool their data centres more efficiently.
IT-related emissions have for the most part evaded the spotlight, although they now account for a significant percentage of global carbon emissions with estimates generally ranging from two to three percent, hovering very closely to those of the climate change poster child, aviation.
At Global Action Plan we work with businesses every day to help them lighten their environmental impact and save money, and we’ve noticed an increasing need for guidance with IT systems and operations. Many IT departments never even see the company energy bill and are unaware of the level of emissions their data centres and office equipment are churning out.
To help support businesses in this area we are leading the UK’s first end user green IT board which will be supported by our newly appointed green IT manager.
Chaired by our director Trewin Restorick and sponsored by Logicalis, the Environmental IT Leadership Team aims to create an independent expert user group focused on exploring and publishing best practice sustainable IT strategies. While there have been other groups driven from the manufacturer side, this is the first from user perspective.
An interesting mix of organisations and businesses sit on the board, including Sony UK, the British Medical Association, E.ON UK, Lloyds TSB, CQS, the University of Cumbria and John Lewis Partnership. This variety illustrates just how pervasive and important IT is today in reducing carbon emissions.
The board will act to share knowledge within the group and wider business community and will look at policy issues, engage with government, and particularly examine ways to overcome some seemingly contradictory policy such as storing data for long periods of time whilst keeping energy use down.
Many companies are bombarded with information and confused about what is best solution for them. This board will help with independent analysis, breaking down techy and political jargon to give clear advice on best practice.
Acting almost like a select committee the board will have the opportunity to question political, industry, technology, and expert guests at its meetings.
One of the first aims for the group is to steer a research project that will be conducted by Global Action Plan. This report will be launched at an event at the House of Commons in the autumn with the backing of Peter Ainsworth MP, Shadow Secretary of State for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs.
This research will contain two main parts: 1) Establishing the carbon footprint of IT in the UK from equipment and the energy consumed, including indirect footprint of using equipment such as the air conditioning needed to keep it cool. 2) A survey of how companies are approaching greening their IT and where they are at the moment in this process. For example, do they have a 'switch off' policy at night? Are they experiencing rapid growth in their data storage?
While there is much to be done to improve the efficiency of IT, it is important to stress how technology can greatly help businesses reduce their emissions. At GAP we've seen many businesses benefit from so-called 'intelligent building' features such as motion detection powered lighting, grey water collection systems, and smart thermostats that keep buildings at a comfortable but energy efficient temperature. Not to mention video and phone conferencing reducing the need for business travel.
But most important is the behaviour of the people in the businesses who are using all this technology. A business can have the most efficient technology around, but if the employees don't use it in a sustainable way its efficiency is greatly reduced. At GAP we know every employee can make a difference by taking simple actions such as switching off their monitors when away from their desks, turning off computers at the end of the day, and only printing documents when absolutely necessary.
Stay tuned for further developments on the IT leadership board and Global Action Plan's upcoming green IT research.
Amy Sims is Communications Manager at environmental charity Global Action Plan
PC's Energy Star label restores relevance after revamp
The Energy Star labelling scheme for energy efficient PCs will receive its first revamp since 2000 this week with the introduction of a raft of stringent new standards that will ensure three quarters of PCs in the market no longer qualify for the label.
The previous version 3.0 specifications had simply required PCs to use less than 20w/h when in sleep mode to qualify for an Energy Star label. However, subsequent developments in PC energy efficiency meant that the label had become devalued in recent years with 98 percent of PCs on the market estimated to qualify under these criteria.
The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) unveiled plans to tackle the problem late last year with a revamped set of more stringent standards that address a wider range of performance criteria. The EPA said at the time that these new standards, which come into effect this Wednesday, should ensure that just the most energy efficient 25 percent of desktop PCs qualify for the label.
Catriona McAlister, senior consultant at environmental consultancy AEA and a contributor to the Energy Star initiative, said that early indications showed that the EPA was set to achieve its goal. "An analysis of the EU Energy Star database has shown that the specification is currently on track to qualify [just a quarter] of models on the market," she said.
Central to the updated specifications is a new requirement that Energy Star-qualified PCs have a power supply boasting 80 percent efficiency. Corrinna Kammerer, desktop and green PC manager at Fujitsu Siemens Computers, said that power supply units with 80 percent efficiency were now widely available, but they did come at a price premium and as a result many PCs currently in the market only boast efficiency of around 65 percent.
The new standards also introduce more stringent specifications for system power consumption, requiring qualified PCs to use no more than four watts in sleep mode and 2 watts in stand by mode. A sliding scale of requirements for energy consumption when the system is idle has also been introduced meaning that low end single core CPU machines must use no more than 50 watts; mid-range multi-core CPU systems with 1GB memory must use no more than 65 watts; and high-end gaming PCs boasting graphic cards and other power hungry components must use no more than 95 watts.
The EPA said that compliance with these new standards will mean that the average Energy Star labeled PC will consume 65 percent less energy than conventional models.
Energy Star labeled products are expected to carry a small price premium, according to Kammerer, with prices for qualified machines expected to be €10 to €20 higher than conventional alternatives. However, industry estimates suggest qualified models could save firms up to £10 a year on their energy bills meaning that the extra up front cost will be offset within a year to 18 months.
John Madden of analysts Ovum predicted many customers would use the Energy Star label as a factor in purchasing decisions. "Once these rules are implemented and people see the standards have some teeth I could see it becoming one of the top three or four factors in [purchasing] decisions," he said.
As a result the proportion of Energy Star labeled PCs is expected to increase rapidly over the next few years as more vendors look to gain a green stamp of approval for their PCs. "All the big brands are already offering Energy Star 4.0 compliant models and with customers likely to just cut and paste current requirements for Energy Star kit into new tenders there will be customer pressure to offer more Energy Star qualified options," said Kammerer. "We will see more and more new models meet the standards."
However, the EPA appears to have learnt from its mistakes and is planning to guard against the label being devalued by technology improvements again with a stricter version 2 of the 4.0 standard already scheduled for 2010.
Climate change scoreboard shames Apple, Google and eBay
The wave of favourable publicity enjoyed by the world's leading IT companies on the back of their various green policies ground to a halt earlier this week with several leading technology firms accused of lagging behind other sectors in their adoption of low carbon business models.
A new report from environmental lobby group Climate Counts assessed 56 major businesses and ranked them based on 22 criteria covering their contribution to global warming, emission reporting policies, work to limit emissions and stance towards climate change legislation and found that several global technology firms are doing little or nothing to tackle climate change.
Apple, eBay and Google received black marks with scores of less than 20 out of 100, while Amazon.com was shamed with a score of zero.
Dell, Hitachi, Siemens, Samsung, Nokia, Microsoft and Yahoo! also failed to cover themselves in glory with scores of less than 50.
Sony, HP, Motorola, Toshiba and IBM achieved more respectable scores, while printer giant Canon took the plaudits with a top score of 77.
Climate Counts said that the benchmark report would be followed by later editions, offering customers an independent means of assessing businesses green credentials and providing firms with an incentive to try and improve their standing.
"We hope Climate Counts will motivate companies to be more proactive in reducing their impact on climate change," said Adam Markham, executive director of non-profit Clean Air-Cool Planet, which backed the report. "Our hope is that the Scorecard challenges them to take climate change seriously and increase their efforts to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions."
Google, Apple and Dell will all be hoping to climb the rankings in the next edition of the report after they recently unveiled new environmental policies.
