The United States government has come up with a plan to force federal agencies to purchase energy-efficient and eco-friendly PCs and displays. The rule was issued on December the 26th by the U.S. Department of Defense, NASA and the General Services Administration, and specifies that all agencies are required to use the Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool when buying new computing hardware.

The Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT) is a rating system developed by the Green Electronics Council. It ranks the energy-efficiency of desktop systems, laptops and monitors based on 51 criteria, such as energy consumption or the absence of paints or coatings that cannot be reused or recycled. The PC products that pass the EPEAT test are awarded gold, silver or bronze medals.

In order to be eligible for purchase, the hardware used by the US federal agencies must get a bronze rating at least. Silver and Gold systems must comply with more strict standards, such as the specification that 90% of the materials used to make them must be reusable or recyclable. The US government is currently using 6.7 million desktops and laptops, with a constant yearly renewal rate of 2.2 million new systems.

Since the government is a premium buyer, it is expected that more PC vendors will set up eco-friendly and energy efficient computing systems. Since the "green" offer will become a true standard for the PC vendors, it is likely that these requirements will become generally adopted on the market. According to IDC analyst Shawn McCarthy, "you will see spillover into other sectors, much as you did once the government pushed Energy Star compliance back in the mid-1990s."

The EPEAT standard has already been adopted by some government agencies, including NASA, the EPA and the Department of Homeland Security. These environmental specifications will help cutting the total cost of ownership on government PCs. Currently, the federal agencies are considering applying EPEAT to copiers and multifunction printers as well.