TCO, the health, environment and worker protection label, has published draft “New Generation TCO Certified” criteria for seven additional product categories: Notebooks, Tablets, Smartphones, Desktops, All-in-One PCs, Projectors, Headsets. Drafts will open for comment until 1st September 2015. The TCO New Generation criterial focus on “sustainability throughout the product life cycle” and target in particular buyers under the EU Public Purchasing Directive 2014.
TCO’s summary of major criteria changes indicates “Halogens have been largely phased out of IT products – but we need better information about alternative substances being used to replace them. … It is important to know more about the content of these substances and to make sure that [they] do not include other risks”. PIN flame retardants are authorised, subject to being on the publically available Accepted Substance List for TCO Certified, which means having a GreenScreen assessment with benchmark 2 or higher (see pinfa Newsletter n° 41). This follows the TCO decision to authorise a number of PIN flame retardants in all IT product categories (see pinfa Newsletter n° 44).
TCO http://tcodevelopment.com/new-generation-tco-certified/
“New General additional product drafts out now” http://tcodevelopment.com/news/new-generation-additional-product-drafts-out-now/
“Summary of major changes” in the New Generation TCO Certified http://tcodevelopment.com/files/2015/03/new-generation-tco-certified-draft-criteria.pdf