Looking back at the past year, 2020 has been a different year to say the least. With a pandemic sweeping across the world, we’ve all had to re-think what is truly important and how to live our lives. Through these difficult times, sustainability has remained on the agenda. I would like to thank all of you for your collaboration, positive impact on our work and being a part of circular solutions.
With the increased demand for more social and environmentally sustainable products, our certification is keeping us busy. Today, with around 3000 certified product models from brands all over the world, choosing more sustainable IT products is more accessible than ever. Notebooks is our fastest-growing product category, with a 50 percent increase of certified product models in 2020.
Another milestone for us was TCO Certified Edge, e-waste compensated. This is a supplemental certification to TCO Certified, giving purchasing organizations the opportunity to take responsibility for the e-waste they generate and contribute to a solution. With our pledge, you can provide an incentive for the IT industry to move in the right direction.
Verification is a cornerstone of what we do. For this reason, our system of mandatory independent verification behind TCO Certified is the most comprehensive available. Independent verifiers spend roughly 20 000 hours annually on verifying compliance with our criteria, including product testing and social audits in factories, during the certificate’s full validity period.
To help organizations make more sustainable and informed IT product choices, we have expanded functionality in our Product Finder to include measurable sustainability performance data for certified products. Also, you can now set up notifications for certified products that also meet additional parameters you’ve defined.
We did a deep-dive into circular approaches for IT products. In our report Impacts and Insights: Circular IT Management in Practice, we explored how the circular economy helps solve many of the most pressing sustainability challenges connected to IT products. At our live online event, we invited you to ask your questions to circularity experts.
Next year is equally exciting for us. We will be focusing on the development of the next generation of TCO Certified, scheduled for launch in December 2021. We release a new generation every third year, to address the most pressing sustainability challenges for IT products and stay up to date on the technology developments. We welcome stakeholders to take part in the development process, to further advance circular IT solutions. Information about TCO Certified, generation 9 can be found on