I thought it was probably a good time to update everyone on what's new in the world of buying new, green IT equipment. Green IT equipment essentially means computers and other electronics devices that have reduced amounts of toxic materials that they're made with (like lead, mercury, cadmium, hexavalent chromium, and PVC plastic), that require relatively less electricity to power them, and that have increased amounts of post-consumer recycled plastics and bio-based or biodegradable plastics. It's also good if they're easy to disassemble and recycle, are easily repairable, and have solid warranties.

TreeHugger often covers exotic new green electronic devices in their coverage of the yearly Consumer Electronics Show. These are usually solar powered devices, equipment that have cases made of bamboo or other alternative materials, and new technologies like organic LED lighting. In this post, however, we'll cover basic green IT devices like desktop PCs, laptops, servers, and monitors that are affordable and easy to get. We'll do other posts on how to buy green used and refurbished IT equipment and also green mobile phones.

Here are a few general precepts on buying new green IT equipment:

• If you can afford it, buy laptops rather than desktop computers. They use on average about 20% of the electricity that desktop systems use.
• Newer processors like Core Duo are more energy efficient than older processors like Pentiums. Energy efficient processors and power supplies are most important on mission-critical IT equipment that runs constantly like servers.
• LCD monitors are much more energy efficient than the older TV tube CRT monitors. LCD monitors that have LED backlights are more energy efficient than conventional LCD monitors that have CCFL backlights.

Find a good noncommercial listing of new green laptops, monitors, and desktop computers at EPEAT, which is an acronym for Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool. EPEAT rates green IT equipment on a bronze, silver, and gold scale based on 51 criteria. Ratings are based on use of non-toxic materials, design for end of life, and energy conservation. The program now has nearly 2,000 rated devices from nearly all the major IT equipment makers and is available worldwide including Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Taiwan, and the 27 countries of the European Union. The EPEAT search is easy to use, allowing you to search by product, vendor, monitor type, and ranking.

The Climate Savers Computing Initiative Online Catalog is another non-commercial resource for individuals and companies to find new green IT products. CSCI's catalog complements EPEAT by rating server computers and power supplies that comply with CSCI's energy efficiency technical specifications, which are mostly based on current U.S. Energy Star specifications (PDF). The program also rates desktops and laptops but has fewer models than EPEAT. Like EPEAT, however, the CSCI online catalog rates IT equipment on a bronze, silver, and gold scale. It is in the form of a search tool that lets you find energy efficient IT devices by type, manufacturer, and rating. Each product listed links to the manufacturers' retail website.

The U.S. EPA's Energy Star website is also (theoretically) a place online to find local stores that sell energy-efficient office equipment through their store locator service. I tried the locator to find retailers in my zip code. Unfortunately it gave me an outdated list of several places that had gone out of business. Oh well… perhaps it will work better for your area.

Another view of how environmentally harmful IT equipment is to look at how conscientious the manufacturers of it are. Greenpeace's Guide to Greener Electronics evaluates the 18 major computer and mobile phone makers in regard to eliminating harmful chemicals in manufacturing and handling products once they've been discarded. They do report cards of the companies each year. Currently Nokia and Sony Ericsson top the list and Lenovo and Nintendo are at the bottom. They rate Sony, Apple, and HP as the best computer makers, although overall, they're middle of the pack.

A good deal of the green IT equipment that you find on the EPEAT site or the Climate Savers Computing Initiative Online Catalog is readily available at retailers like Best Buy in the U.S or online retailers like Computer Shopper or Amazon's Green Electronics section where you can find Energy Star qualified and EPEAT rated desktop computers, laptops, monitors and other office products. To search for, say, EPEAT gold devices go to Amazon's electronics section and look for the EPEAT links along the left-hand side of the page.

Given all the online resources that have come available in the last few years, it's actually now pretty easy to identify affordable new green IT equipment. The only problem is finding the money to buy it.

Photo: Staticjana