DW: What constitutes a sustainable IT product?

Niclas Rydell: A more sustainable product should be safe and ergonomic to use. It should not have too much impact on the environment, and you have to consider social aspects in production. You don't want a product that is violating the ILO conventions or the UN Rights of the Child Convention.

So how does TCO certification work?

We sign a license agreement with the brand owner. The brand owners undertake to fulfill a set of criteria, and they agree to certain consequences if they don't. In the worst case, the license is withdrawn. Then the brand owner sends the product to be certified to a third party, a test laboratory. TCO Certified does not decide if a product passes or fails. This has to be done by a third party, who is independent and has no benefit from passing or failing a product. If the product meets the criteria, the brand owner also has to let a third-party auditor visit one of their factories to see that the social conditions for the workers are OK and do not violate national or international law. Then we issue a certificate for the product.

What environmental criteria play a role?

The production facility should be environmentally certified according to ISO 1401 (Environment Management Norm). Then, the product itself should not include dangerous chemicals or other substances, which can leak out into nature if the product is burned or incorrectly recycled. The product should be easy to recycle. To verify that you can make sure that the product is easy to disassemble into small parts, and that each of the plastic parts are labeled with the type of plastic, so that you can sort them in the recycling station. The packaging material should also be recyclable, and free of dangerous chemicals. And the product has to have low energy consumption.

But another very important environmental aspect is the life of a product. If you can use the product for, say, one more year, that has an enormous impact on the environment. This is something many people do not consider. In TCO Certified, we have combined the environmental criteria with performance criteria, so a certified product is also a high-end product that can last for many years. For instance, we have verified the picture quality of displays so that the light is high, the colors and the viewing angles are good, and you can maybe still use your monitor after five years instead of buying a new one. Another factor is that you should be able to buy spare parts for your product, and repair it if it's broken. We ask the brand owners to offer a warranty for several years.

What role does the EU play in promoting sustainability in IT products?

The EU has released a new purchasing directive, where they make it simpler for purchasers in Europe to request certification as a proof of more sustainable products. If you are a buyer wanting to purchase a sustainable product, you can either learn all about sustainability yourself, or ask for a certification. The benefit is you don't have to have all the knowledge yourself, and you don't have to control it every year. According to European law, if you set the criteria, you have do follow up with controls every year, to verify that the products comply. Certifiers like TCO will do this for you. Now the EU has realized this is a good idea and is making it easier to use certification.

Many of the products are made outside the EU. Do the criteria still apply?

Yes, we have been working with brand owners in the IT industry for 20 years. We have been able to achieve a lot in the environmental sector. Now we are trying to improve social conditions in production. We have developed a network of senior management representatives who are in control of the social aspects in the factories. With them we believe we have a possibility to improve the situation for the workers. We started this in 2012, now we have 17 big IT brands in the network.

Today there is a big demand for some sort of social certification for IT. You buy fair trade coffee beans, textiles, bananas, chocolate, but when it comes to IT you don't have anything. You can now use TCO certified all over the world. Your German headquarters can make the decision and all your branches in India, USA, Asia, will be using TCO Certified products. About 50 percent of all the displays in the world are TCO certified.

TCO is the only global certification that has social criteria for IT products. This is why we are in high demand in many countries, especially Germany and Sweden. This is mostly for office products, we are working on mobile products. The higher the demand for certified mobile products, the more the brand-owners will be willing to certify their products.

TCO Certified is a sustainability label for IT products for the public sector, owned by TCO, a non-profit trade union in Sweden. Niclas Rydell is director of certification at TCO Development.

Interview: Irene Quaile