We have seen a growing interest in high-performance office electronics with the rise in work from home (WFH). In terms of plug loads in typical buildings, electronics are typically the top 5 in terms of energy consumption. This summer across the Ecomedes network, they were the 2nd most popular product segment. We are surrounded by electronics in the modern office building and everywhere we go we likely bring along some form of electronics. It is funny how most of these personal devices have the power to be wireless in terms of communications, but eventually, we need to plug them in to get the power they need to run. Most if not all of the green procurement regulations and guidelines reference: Energy Star, EPEAT, or TCO.
Energy Star is one of the best-known ecolabels in the country and has covered in a wide variety of product categories beyond electronics. It ranks products by energy consumption for the most part and can be utilized to evaluate ROI (Return on Investment) and TCO (Total Cost of Ownership). EPEAT and TCO are both multi-attribute standards that have a robust product evaluation criteria that cover manufacturing, use and recycling of IT products with regard to environmental and social responsibility.
This summer we have been working to support several large institutional buyers of office electronics with their procurement targets. By analyzing the product offerings from all the manufacturers and then providing a curated catalog of compliant products, we significantly increase compliance rates and can lower energy consumption, decrease climate impacts and deliver a reduced total cost of ownership while supporting a sustainable supply chain.
One of the product subcategories that is the most active within the platform is monitors. We currently have over 4,489 monitors that carry one or more of the ecolabels mentioned above. Our users typically search this vast catalog by either their favorite brand and/or the ecolabels that are called out in their project specifications or RFP. The procurement requirements are increasing also asking for transparency around social responsibility and a circular economy, in addition to almost mandatory energy consumption characteristics. Search for better products can be accomplished in a couple of clicks and reporting documentation can be generated in under a minute.
We will be releasing some new powerful tools in the coming weeks that will allow users to get rankings within product categories so that you can easily find the highest performance products that align with your project and procurement missions and deliver the triple bottom line results you want.