There are hundreds of green-certified computer displays available and available models in most categories have increased since 2017. Here is how to find the most sustainable displays, including projectors, listed by international certification services.

The 2020 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) gave a Sustainability, Eco-Design & Smart Energy award to the HP E273d 27-inch Docking Monitor. CES called it "the world’s first display manufactured using ocean-bound plastics to help reduce waterway pollution." CES also cited the monitor's "100% fiber recyclable packaging". The monitor does not yet appear in the EPEAT registry. Other E273 models in the EPEAT registry get only a Silver rating.

Many Green ICT certification and registration programs cover categories of office equipment other than the major ones for which we publish separate articles. (See list to the right.) Our latest update revealed no new categories and no overall increase in the number of models available. We also note an EPA-recognized toner cartridge remanufacturing initative.

Much Green ICT focuses on computers: servers in the data center and desktops in the office. Don't forget that disk-based data storage, which can cost an organization $25/GB/month, also offers opportunities. It's for an update on the progress manufacturers and users have been making in recent years to manage data storage's energy consumption.

The 2019 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) awarded a Sustainability and Eco-design award to an internal storage device. This is unusual recognition for a component described by CES as "...storage for supercomputing targeted at AI analysis, big data and IoT applications..." Hardly 'consumer' electronics. Recognition for the Samsung 3.84TB NVMe Z-SSD (SZ1733) was "...based on its having the highest performance and density for an NVMe SSD, as well as extremely high reliability and ultra-low latency." Samsung cites the product's "...extremely low-power consumption (15 watts at 1.2V). "

A look at major certification programs in the United States and Europe shows a significant increase in the number of certified models over the past few years. Desktops, workstations, and related configurations are a declining market, so it is a positive sign that manufacturers are still certifying their latest products.

The United States Environmental Protection Agency's Sustainable Materials Management (SMM) Electronics Challenge "encourages electronics manufacturers, brand owners and retailers to strive to send 100 percent of the used electronics they collect from the public, businesses and within their own organizations to third-party certified electronics refurbishers and recyclers." ICT companies have performed well in the Challenge. Dell, LG, Samsung all received top recognition.

The American state of California is home to ~70 million end-user computers, servers and computer monitors. It is now planning to role out a series of energy standards for new units beginning in 2018.

Our e-devices contain all sorts of exotic materials, many of which, like tungsten, tantalum, and tin, are refined from ores that originate in Central Africa. Called "conflict minerals", they fund warfare in the Congo and neighboring countries. More people are said have been killed here than any conflict since World War Two. Progress is being made, but legal setbacks and weak laws are slowing efforts. The latest critiicisms focus on proposed EU regulations.

The EPEAT Gold database includes 389 models for the US. This represents a drop of ~30% over a year ago. The biggest drops came from Toshiba (-47%) and Samsung (-76%), the companies that offer the most models a year ago. Toshiba is still a model count leader, along with HP and Apple. The latter two companies increased their models counts in the past year.

We have been tracking this topic the inception of Vertatique and it is consistently our most-Googled post. We just updated it to better present the material and add newer information.

Workplace social site Cafe Quill has published GreenHab the Office infogrpahic (below). It has many good practices; we're were particularly glad to be reminded of one of the more mundane but still important aspects of Green ICT. And the reminder came with a shocking statistic!