First IT products to meet new social responsibility requirements in TCO Certified

Enhanced focus on social and environmental responsibility offers additional verification for buyers.
TCO Development, the international organization for Sustainable IT, today announced the first IT products to achieve the new generation TCO Certified sustainability certification. Focusing on environmental, social and economic responsibility, TCO Certified is the first program of it’s kind to enhance its environmental certification with requirements for corporate social responsibility – CSR – in production facilities for IT products. Since the announcement of the new requirements in March of this year, several IT brands have been working to improve their CSR commitment, resulting in the first products to meet the new requirements.

As concern for working conditions in IT manufacturing facilities grows, TCO Certified will now require manufacturers to demonstrate their commitment to the ILO core conventions for social responsible working conditions, as well as comply with all environmental, ergonomic, energy and other requirements in TCO Certified. Production facilities will need to show progress towards meeting the ILO conventions through independent social audits as well as commitments to programs such as EICC or SA8000.

Criteria in TCO Certified are designed to ensure that the manufacture, use and recycling of IT products is carried out with regard to environmental, social and economic considerations. The program is a useful tool for professional buyers in making sustainable IT purchasing easier, and as all product models are verified in an independent test facility, buyers can be confident that the products they select live up to expectations.

Professional purchasers around the world trust TCO Certified as a tool to help them reach their sustainable IT goals. Dominik Schreiber from the Electrical Office Equipment Group with the City of Vienna, Austria, welcomes the enhanced CSR focus: “The wide range of criteria used in TCO Certified gives valuable support in purchasing IT equipment. We appreciate the efforts for increasingly including social aspects in the program as well as the reliable verification procedures”,.

Soren Enholm, CEO of TCO Development “The new Generation TCO Certified comes at a time when organizations are more engaged than ever in implementing sustainable practices in all aspects of their business. They also expect the same commitment from their vendors and suppliers of IT products, meaning those products should be environmentally preferable as well as manufactured under socially responsible conditions. By enhancing our commitment to social responsibility in the new TCO Certified, we believe both purchasers and manufacturers will be able to more effectively drive IT in a more sustainable direction.”