Energy Star and TCO 2008 Certification goes to flash drive design firm Flash Drive Direct

PRLog (Press Release) - Mar 15, 2008 -
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Energy Star was initially only a United States government program to promote energy efficient consumer products. However during the past decade it has spread throughout Canada, Australia and a dozen other countries. It is well known for its blue logo appearing on many computer products and peripherals.
TCO Certification is a series of product certifications for office equipment (most notably monitors). It is set by TCO Development, owned by the Swedish Confederation of Professional Employees. The Certifications are named after years. Although commonly associated with computer monitors, later TCO revisions also defined standards for computers, keyboards, printers, flash drives mobile phones and more.
In January of 2008 Flash Drive Direct applied for and was today granted final certification for both the Energy Star program and the more European-based TCO Develepement certificate.
“We felt it was enormously important not just for us but for the industry as a whole to achieve these certifications. I do not think people truly understand the positive impact that flash drives are having on the environment.” states John Graham, corporate communications officer for Flash Drive Direct. “ We see a a tremendous power savings, a decline in raw material usage and a much smaller post-consumer waste footprint”.
In a recent study, it was discovered that the energy expounded when a CD is burned on a conventional PC compared to the energy consumed in the transfer of the same data load to a USB Flash Drive was on average over 500% less. The study also showed that the energy and petrochemicals consumed in the making of a conventional CD was 1.78 times more when compared to the energy and plastics consumed in the construction of the average Flash Drive.
Considering that 97% of all CD sales are for 1 time use (non-rewritable) and that nearly half of all CD’s are used only 1.3 times (on average) for the simple transfer of data from 1 computer to another, if you compare that large amount of energy consumed to the small eco-footprint of a Flash Drive it is easy to see how these relatively simple devices have been able to achieve such high environmental standards. I 2007 an estimated 4 billion used CD’s ended up in land fills
This past fall Flash Drive Direct also reached RoHS and WEEE compliancy.
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