Green PCs bring eco issue to computer desktops

Tech firms are developing environmentally-friendly practices and sustainable products Dublin-based company MicroPro is championing the cause for environmentally-friendly computer products, writes Eamon McGrane

For governments, business communities and the general public, environmental issues and concerns can still sometimes bear the whiff of the domain of "beard and sandals merchants".

These ideas were probably inculcated in the early days of the modern green movement, when its practitioners were seen as being more in touch with mother earth than with what could be termed "the real world" or as scatological tree-huggers (remember the Richard Briers and Felicity Kendall characters from TV's The Good Life?).

That has all changed and green has moved into the mainstream - and the IT sector is no exception.

The European Commission's Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) directive means that electronics cannot just be dumped by the roadside or into landfill sites and must be recycled properly. In addition, many companies in the tech sector are looking at more environmentally-friendly work practices, such as reducing power consumption and output and trying to bring sustainable products to market.

One company that has championed the cause for environmentally-friendly tech products is MicroPro Computers, based in Rathfarnham, Dublin. It has been working on a range of green PCs for the past 10 years.

These environmentally-friendly PCs, named Iameco, are manufactured using techniques from environmental science. MicroPro has reduced the power consumption as well as the amount of hazardous materials in the machines, such as lead, mercury, chromium, brominated flame retardants and plastics.

Another notable feature of Iameco PCs is their casings - you can get the CPU, monitor, keyboard and mice in a variety of wood finishes.

According to Paul Maher, managing director of MicroPro Computers, one of the big advantages of Iameco is that it is easy to update and upgrade them, so if you want to get a faster machine and emigrate, for example, to a new operating system, it's just a matter of getting extra RAM and updating the motherboard - there is no need to dump the machine in favour of a new model.

"I looked at all the wastage - the plastics, lead, PVCs, mercury and so on - and managed to reduce the size of the PC by one-third and extend the life of the machine.

"The worst case scenario is that, in six to eight years' time, you can upgrade and update by taking out the motherboard and replacing it, but you keep the keyboard, mouse and screen and so on," says Maher.

The company is working towards getting the European Union's Eco Label on its products - something that, according to Maher, no other PC manufacturer has.

"While the company sells many machines to the public, we are really concentrating on the area of green procurement. In December 2006, the EU gave a directive that 50 per cent of all computers bought by European governments must have the Eco Label or equivalent standard. European governments bought 2.8 million computers in 2006, so we're targeting a small percentage of that space," Maher says.

MicroPro is also looking at opening a factory in China to make the wooden casings for the PCs, keyboards, monitors and mice to bring down the overall cost of the product.

Maher's ambition is for Iameco to be a recognised name, alongside standard PCs and Apple range.

"When people are buying PCs we see them as having three choices - the standard black and grey plastic boxes, Apple as an alternative and Iameco as the world's first environmental computer," he adds.