How to use TCO Certified in IT Purchasing
By selecting TCO Certified IT products your organization can play a pivotal role in influencing the IT industry to develop products that meet our ever increasing environmental, social and economic demands in the manufacturing, use and recycling of those products.
There are several ways you can make a difference by making TCO Certified part of your Sustainable IT Strategy:
1. Ask for TCO Certified products in your purchasing specifications
TCO Certified is a unique program as it includes rigorous sustainability requirements for IT products, covering environmental and social criteria for product manufacture, use and recycling. While the combination of criteria is unique to TCO Certified, the program does reference existing legislation and programs (eg Energy Star) that are incorporated in to the criteria set.
2. Make sure to ask for the latest version of TCO Certified
Criteria in TCO Certified are updated regularly, approximately every three years. Therefore there are often products on the market certified to either the most recent or an earlier version of TCO Certified. To make sure you select products that meet the latest TCO Certified criteria, make sure to request the latest version of TCO Certified in your purchasing specifications. By ding this you can be sure of your contribution to advancing sustainability in IT.
3. Talk to your IT vendor
Initiate a discussion with your IT vendor on how to best leverage your purchasing specifications and routines to help reach your organization’s sustainability goals. Make sure to outline your goals and targets to your vendor to see how product selection and features can help meet those objectives. Optimizing sustainability in your IT environment should be an ongoing dialog between you and your vendor.
4. Trust TCO Certified as a tool to help make IT purchasing easier
Using TCO Certified is an easy way to include and verify sustainability criteria when selecting IT products. TCO Certified is a Type 1 third party certification, which means every certified product model has been rigorously tested and verified by an independent third party to meet all TCO Certified criteria. TCO Development also carries out after- market product spot checks in all criteria areas, including CSR, so you can be confident in the sustainability profile of the products you select.
5. Search for TCO Certified products in our database
You can find all TCO Certified products in our searchable online product database of over 4000 IT products.
6. Already using TCO Certified? Let us know!
We at TCO Development like to hear from organizations making use of TCO Certified in their IT purchasing. An important aspect of our work is our ongoing dialog with stakeholders, including purchasers actively implementing sustainable IT practices in their organization. By understanding how and where TCO Certified is being used, we can together further drive sustainable development in IT.
Together we can make a difference and move IT in a more sustainable direction!
