Green Electronics Council Honors NERC

The Green Electronics Council (GEC), managers of the EPEAT ecolabel, presented 37 organizations with a 2017 EPEAT Purchaser Award in recognition of their leadership in the procurement of sustainable IT products. When combined, the 2017 EPEAT Purchaser Award winners realized cost savings of more than $33.8 million across the lifetime of their purchased products. Along with significant cost savings, the 37 EPEAT Purchaser Award winners also recognized considerable environmental benefits from their purchasing decisions including combined greenhouse gas reductions equivalent to removing more than 40,000 passenger cars from the road for a year; a reduction of nearly 769 metric tons of hazardous waste; solid waste savings equivalent to that produced by 2,078 average U.S. households each year; a reduction in energy usage by 327.5 million kWh; and avoidance of 513.8 metric tons of water pollutant emissions.

Large scale public and private sector purchasers globally rely on the EPEAT Registry, the leading online rating system of sustainable IT products, to identify and purchase sustainable IT products. “The EPEAT ecolabel was established to provide large-scale purchasers a way to identify credible sustainable IT products,” said Melanie Bower, Director of EPEAT. “The EPEAT Purchaser Awards allows us to recognize those organizations who chose to realize significant cost savings and positive environmental benefits by making informed decisions about the IT products they purchase.”

The Green Electronics Council recognized the EPEAT Purchaser Award winners at a ceremony sponsored by the Information Technology Industry Council (ITI), the premier advocacy and policy organization for the world's leading innovation companies. Award ceremony speakers included Ian Kirk, a purchaser representative from the Canadian Government and Joel Sigler, Senior Manager of National Environmental Health & Safety at Kaiser Permanente.

Among those receiving awards was the Northeast Recycling Council, Inc. (NERC) as a One-Star Award Winner.

NERC is a non-profit organization that conducts research, projects, training, and outreach on issues associated with source reduction, reuse, recycling, composting, and environmentally preferable purchasing.