January 14, 2008

Green Electronics Council and Channel Intelligence Enter Alliance

Orlando, Florida and Portland, Oregon – Channel Intelligence, Inc. (CI) and the Green Electronics Council (GEC), which manages the EPEAT green computer rating system, today announced they have entered into an alliance to provide wider availability of information on products compliant with the EPEAT standard. The alliance will help increase awareness and purchases of green electronics through the integration of EPEAT registration status into online product descriptions on e-commerce websites.

The EPEAT system, which was developed through a stakeholder process, including manufacturers and supported by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, evaluates computer desktops, laptops, and monitors based on 51 environmental criteria. All EPEAT registered products must meet 23 mandatory environmental performance criteria. An additional 28 optional criteria are used to determine whether products earn EPEAT Gold, Silver, or Bronze status.

EPEAT is a required specification for federal purchasers, and is increasingly used by state and local government purchasers as well as private sector IT managers, to “green” their electronics purchasing. The US Federal government recently integrated a requirement into the Federal Acquisition Regulations that 95% of all eligible products purchased by federal agencies must be EPEAT-registered.

Retailers have long been interested in showing which products are EPEAT registered, but have struggled with keeping their web pages up-to-date. The alliance between GEC and CI is expected to provide purchasers in the public and private sectors with real-time information to evaluate, compare and select products based on their compliance with the EPEAT standard. Soon EPEAT Gold, Silver, or Bronze registration marks will appear on retail websites along with other product information provided by Channel Intelligence, and changes to EPEAT registration status will be updated globally in near real time.

For the full text of the release, please go the EPEAT website. For more information, please contact Sarah O’Brien at the Green Electronics Council – (802) 479-0317 or Vik Murty at Channel Intelligence – (321) 206-5855.