We have identified a sustainability opportunity at the University of Washington. If implemented, the University could become a leader in environmentally responsible computer purchasing practices. Based on current projections, this project would produce quantifiable benefits over $600,000 per year for the UW. This policy provides an important step towards sustainability at the University for the following reasons:

• Electronic waste is the fastest growing waste stream in the world; hazardous chemicals found in electronic waste make up 70% of the heavy metals found in solid waste landfills.
• Purchasing between 10,000-15,000 computers per year, the UW has the power to leverage change in the industry.
• The UW is a leader in environmentally responsible recycling of electronic waste.
• The UW does not have a policy governing the environmentally responsible purchasing of computers, while other peer institutions have recently adopted such policies.

How the UW can become more sustainable:
The Purchasing Department and the Environmental Stewardship Advisory Committee (ESAC) are developing voluntary guidelines for the environmentally responsible purchasing of computers. We believe these guidelines can take greater advantage of the UW's purchasing power to leverage change in the computer industry, and to place the UW as a leader in environmentally responsible purchasing. Current leaders include the following:

• The University of California system requires all computers purchased to meet the Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT) Bronze Certification.
• The Federal Government requires 95% of all federal computers purchased to meet EPEAT Bronze Certification.

Developed over an intensive process involving over 100 stakeholders from the computer industry (including the City of Seattle and the UW's 3 main computer suppliers, Dell, HP and Apple), EPEAT provides an easy to use purchasing tool to help organizations compare computers based on their environmental attributes.

Proposed Policy:
Require that 95 % of the computers purchased by the UW meet at least EPEAT Bronze Certification.

This proposal for environmentally responsible purchasing will pose no additional cost to the University. In fact, according to the EPEAT Federal Benefits Calculator, the UW's purchase of EPEAT Bronze Certified computers will produce cost savings of $600,000 per year for the UW. These cost savings result from compliance with the most current Energy Star requirements and are generated by energy savings over the life cycle of the product (based on assumption UW currently purchases 10,000 computers annually, none of which meet EPEAT Bronze Certification, and switches to purchasing 9500 EPEAT Bronze Certified computers). Energy Star certifies levels of energy consumption savings and therefore contributes to decreasing the carbon footprint of the University.

Furthermore, in 2004 the University recycled over 5,000 computer monitors at the cost of $8 dollars each. As a result, we spent over $40,000 dollars in computer recycling costs on monitors alone. With EPEAT registered products the life cycle of a computer is extended. This longer lifespan results in cost savings from having to purchase and recycle fewer computers. In addition, the cost of recycling is expected to decrease as the use of hazardous materials in computers decreases. In the future when computers become available without toxic inputs, (e.g. displays without cathode ray tubes, or mercury lamps) the costs of recycling will be considerably less. As EPEAT computers are new to the market as of 2006, it is impossible to quantify exact savings.

The proposal will also result in numerous environmental benefits. Specific environmental benefits include minimizing pollution to the environment and workplace, minimizing need for extraction of harmful chemicals or elements (e.g. mercury), minimizing energy consumption, utilizing more recycled materials in production and thus minimizing the impacts of primary production. Many of these benefits are presented in the table below.Exhibit courtesy of the Federal Electronics Environmental Benefits Calculator

The University of Washington currently purchases between 10,000-15,000 computers per year (David McCone, Senior Contracts Manager, Purchasing, University of Washington Purchasing Dept., phone conversation on April 13th, 2007). Because of this large volume of computers purchased, the University has the ability to leverage change in the industry. "Large volume purchasers have made a difference in many different industries over the years. Air bags first appeared in automobiles because large fleet managers requested them." (EPEAT Fact Sheet) Large volume purchasers have now just begun demanding high-performance environmentally responsible or "green" computers. Fortunately the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has developed an excellent tool, the Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT), to help guide Federal agencies and others in green purchasing. Many institutions are shifting their purchasing policies to meet the EPEAT standard as a way of reducing the human health and environmental impacts associated with computer purchases.

EPEAT is an easy-to-use purchasing tool to help organizations compare computers based on their environmental attributes. Officially launched in July 2006, EPEAT consists of a set of voluntary environmental criteria and a system for identifying and verifying products meeting the criteria. The three-tiered EPEAT standard (Bronze, Silver and Gold) includes 23 required criteria (to achieve a Bronze rating) and 28 optional criteria in the following eight environmental categories: Reduction/Elimination of environmentally sensitive materials; Materials selection; Design for end-of-life; Life cycle extension; Energy conservation; End-of-life management; Corporate performance; and Packaging. Developed over a three-year period with funding from the EPA, the public standard-development process involved more than 100 stakeholders from throughout the computer world, including IT purchasers, federal, state, and local governments, environmental activists, computer recyclers, computer and component manufacturers, and the three major computer suppliers to the UW, Dell, HP and Apple, and the City of Seattle. The stakeholders coordinated EPEAT criteria with existing international electronic standards such as the European Union's Restriction on Hazardous Substances (RoHS) and the U.S. Energy Star program, and created new standards as needed. Designed to reduce environmental health risks, the EPEAT standard creates required or optional thresholds for a number of hazardous materials including cadmium, lead, mercury, PVC, brominated flame retardants and hexavalent chromium. In addition to reducing the use of hazardous materials, EPEAT computers are required to facilitate ease of recycling, and come with a three year warrantee.

The University of Washington's Purchasing Department and the Environmental Stewardship Advisory Committee (ESAC) are developing voluntary guidelines for the environmentally responsible purchasing of computers, including encouraging the purchase of EPEAT registered products. While these guidelines are a step in the right direction, they do not go far enough in galvanizing UW's purchasing power to leverage change in the computer industry.

Since the Environmental Stewardship Advisory Committee is responsible for making environmental policy at the University, we will work with them to implement our proposal. This will include working with the Purchasing department to require EPEAT specifications in purchasing contracts.

The existing barriers begin with the ad hoc and autonomous computer purchasing system described above. This system results from a University culture that resists policy mandates and values independence. As a result, the current purchasing system is fragmented, decentralized and provides few incentives for reporting compliance. Our proposed policy addresses these system barriers by requiring EPEAT Bronze Certification in all purchasing contracts. To alleviate necessary deviations from the policy, we recommend that individuals may apply for a waiver from the Purchasing Department to purchase a non-EPEAT registered computer.

The Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) is a membership based association of college and universities working to advance sustainability in higher education. AASHE has established the Sustainability in Higher Education Assessment Framework (SHEAF) tool for measuring the sustainability performance of campuses. The AASHE SHEAF model currently has indicators within the Purchasing section directly relevant to our proposal. Specifically, AASHE includes a metric for measuring the computer replacement cycle, and specifications for purchasing EPEAT registered products. While we agree with the strategy of requiring EPEAT registered products in purchasing specifications, this strategy does not set a percentage threshold regarding the amount of EPEAT registered products an institution should purchase. Nor does the computer replacement cycle adequately reflect the environmentally responsible purchasing of computers. To that end we recommend adjusting the strategy indicator:

• Require 95% of the computers purchased by the University meet EPEAT Bronze Certification

And the metric:

• % of computers purchased by the University meeting EPEAT Bronze Certification.

This combination of strategy and metric provides clear guidelines to the University regarding the environmentally responsible purchasing of computers by delineating a goal and a performance measurement for reaching that goal.

On March 22nd, 2007, the University of California system released their revised and renamed Policy on Sustainability Practices and the guidelines for the implementation of this policy. This comprehensive sustainability policy, encompassing the entire University of California system, includes a policy regarding Environmentally Preferable Purchasing Practices. A subsection of these Purchasing Practices, entitled Reduction of Hazardous Electronic Waste, states that all desktop computers, laptops, and computer monitors purchased by the University are required to have achieved Bronze registration or higher under EPEAT. In addition, this subsection calls for the recycling of electronic waste in a responsible manner, with implementation procedures specifying how to achieve this goal. These implementation procedures for the reduction of hazardous electronic waste require all recyclers of the University's electronic equipment to have signed and been certified to the Basel Action Network and Computer TakeBack Campaign's Electronics Recyclers Pledge of True Stewardship, and requires all manufacturers involved in "take-back" programs to adhere to similarly high standards of responsible recycling.

This policy resulted from a multi-year campaign of student activism, organized by the Toxic Free UC coalition. This organization, with assistance from the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition and the Computer TakeBack Campaign wanted to use the UC system's purchasing power to leverage change in the electronics industry. They provided technical assistance to the recycling and purchasing departments to find room for improvement in their practices, and worked with the President and Regent's office to determine feasibility (Phone Interview with Maureen Cane, Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition and Toxic Free UC, April 20th, 2007) The UC system provides a successful precedent of a peer institution implementing a similar proposal, and shows that the UW can easily follow suit.

On January 24th, 2007, President Bush signed Executive Order 13423, Strengthening Federal Environmental, Energy, and Transportation Management, which requires that federal agencies "when acquiring an electronic product to meet [agency] requirements, meets at least 95 percent of those requirements with an Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT)-registered electronic product." According to Edwin Piñero, of the Federal Environmental Executive Office, "Highly advanced, affordable, and environmentally-preferable computers are already being sought by the Department of Homeland Security, NASA, Department of Energy, Department of the Interior, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and the Executive Office of the President." (Office of the Federal Environmental Executive. White House Council on Environmental Quality Recognizes Manufacturers of "Environmentally Preferable" Computers. March 21, 2007) The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, using conservative assumptions, estimates that the federal government's purchase of EPEAT-registered computers over a four year timeframe will generate the following savings:

• Save $71.4 million in energy costs.
• Reduce energy use by 824 GWh, enough to power 72,630 households for a year.
• Reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 64,700 metric tons of carbon equivalent, which is equal to removing 51,317 cars from the road for a year.
• Reduce material use by 1.47 million metric tons.
• Reduce toxic materials by 75.1 metric tons, the equivalent of 37,550 standard size bricks.
• Reduce hazardous waste by 2,820 metric tons, the equivalent of 1.4 million standard size bricks.
• Reduce mercury by 5.7 kilograms, the equivalent of 9,368 mercury thermometers.