European Union governments will be expected to purchase office equipment such as PCs that conform to international energy-efficiency ratings, after a new ruling was passed this week.

The European Council (EC) has adopted a regulation that member states must comply with ratings that are at least as demanding as the US Energy Star product labelling scheme that Europe also adopted in 2001.

It is vital that the public sector is seen to be taking the lead in environmental procurement, said Ovum senior analyst Ian Brown.

“It's good to see the EC stepping up to the mark and making energy efficiency a requirement for public sector procurement of office equipment,” he said.

“The European public sector should be the spur that encourages all vendors to adopt at least minimum Energy Star standards for all their office products. If they don't, they'll be left out of public sector procurement bids.”

And chief information officers (CIOs) will have an important role to play, said Brown.
“Simply buying Energy Star products will not lead to significant energy savings without changes in behaviour and IT needs to play its part,” he said.

“While most CIOs have enough to do trying to stabilise and reduce costs in the data centre, they shouldn't neglect their responsibilities for those power-hungry PCs sitting on so many desktops.

“These are relatively simple strategies that can lead to demonstrable savings and earn the recognition that IT isn't always the bad guy, but can be a major contributor to the solution.”