We’re pleased to announce that The Association for the Advancement of Higher Education (AASHE) now offers TCO Certified as a way to qualify for the Electronics Purchasing credit in the AASHE STARSⓇ sustainability rating system.
The AASHE Sustainability Tracking, Assessment & Rating System (STARS) rating system is used by over 1,000 universities and colleges in North America and around the world to measure sustainability efforts in a variety of areas — from sustainability curriculum to campus greening and sustainable procurement. The program now offers higher education the opportunity to use TCO Certified to meet the Electronics Purchasing Credit. This means institutions can use a single certification to cover multiple sustainability criteria in their IT purchasing, addressing both environmental and supply chain social responsibility. Additional areas covered include fair labor practices, conflict minerals and other risks in the complex, global IT supply chain, which purchasers are rarely able to access themselves.
Most importantly, the independent verification included in TCO Certified, provides campus IT and sustainability teams with the confidence to measure their impact and reassurance that they are driving real, validated change connected to both the IT products they purchase and in the supply chain where they are manufactured.
By specifying TCO Certified when procuring IT products, institutions earn points toward the STARS Electronics Purchasing credit. Points are awarded based on the extent to which a higher education institution’s electronics purchases meet multi-attribute sustainability standards. STARS is a transparent, self-reporting framework for colleges and universities to measure their sustainability performance.
There are currently around 3500 certified IT products from 27 brands. You can find all products certified according to TCO Certified in our Product Finder.
Clare Hobby
Director of purchaser engagement at TCO Development
