Channel Intelligence Inc. (CI), a leader in Web-initiated commerce solutions, has teamed up with Zones Inc. to feature environmentally preferred EPEAT (Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool) registered products to help meet the purchasing requirements for government and corporate green customers. Zones, a single-source direct marketing reseller of name-brand information technology products, offers more than 150,000 products from leading manufacturers. The EPEAT program evaluates computer desktops, laptops and monitors based on 51 environmental criteria developed through an extensive stakeholder consensus process supported by U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
“We were very interested in helping our customers make buying decisions for products which are EPEAT registered, and the Channel Intelligence SellPath® solution is a very simple and scalable option for Zones featuring up-to-date information on Gold, Silver, or Bronze EPEAT-registered products,” said Anwar Jiwani, CIO at Zones. “Our customers are always looking for the best computing products on our site, and we’re proud that Zones helps them find green and environmentally friendly products quickly and easily.”
SellPath® Media Exchange (http://www.channelintelligence.com/
Jeff Omelchuck, executive director of the Green Electronics Council (GEC) and EPEAT, said, “The Channel Intelligence solution helps IT buyers quickly identify the EPEAT-registered products on retailers’ product pages by using the EPEAT Bronze, Silver, and Gold certification marks, which have more visual impact than trying to search through technical specifications. We’re pleased to see how the online retail marketplace is responding to “green” IT purchasing using CI’s Media Exchange service.”
“We are excited to drive increased sales of green EPEAT registered products at Zones, as well as participating in the tremendous environmental and cost benefits which have a huge global benefit,” said Shailesh Adhav, CI Vice President, Enterprise Sales & Green Solutions. “SellPath Media Exchange is the perfect product to accurately and dynamically identify EPEAT products – it helps our customers and the environment, today and in the future.”
CI’s alliance with the GEC, which manages the EPEAT green computer rating system, was announced earlier this year. With 2007 world-wide unit sales figures reflecting a 150 percent increase in the annualized purchase of EPEAT products over 2006, the year the EPEAT system was first introduced, total environmental and cost benefits from EPEAT purchasing have grown dramatically. In 2007, the purchase of EPEAT-registered laptops, desktops, and monitors over conventional products reduced the use of toxic materials, including mercury, by 3,220 metric tons, equivalent to the weight of 1.6 million bricks. In addition, due to EPEAT’s requirement that registered products meet ENERGY STAR energy efficiency specifications, those products will save 42.2 billion kWh of electricity throughout their useful life, enough kWh to power 3.7 million U.S. homes for one year.
The EPEAT Registry is delivered through CI’s leading technology commerce platform for product data and uses CI’s SellPath Media Exchange to support green electronics purchases. Utilizing CI’s services, Zones will increase awareness and purchases of environmentally safer products through the integration of EPEAT registration status into their online catalog.
About Zones, Inc.
Zones, Inc. is a single-source direct marketing reseller of name-brand information technology products to the small-to-medium-
About EPEAT
The EPEAT (Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool) program evaluates computer desktops, laptops, and monitors based on 51 environmental criteria developed through an extensive stakeholder consensus process supported by US EPA. The EPEAT standard is ANSI approved and was formally adopted in 2006 as Standard 1680 of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE). All EPEAT registered products must meet 23 mandatory environmental criteria. An additional 28 optional criteria are used to determine whether products earn EPEAT Bronze, Silver, or Gold recognition. For full details on the EPEAT criteria, a searchable database of EPEAT registered products, a list of participating manufacturers, and RFPs using EPEAT, visit the EPEAT web site at http://www.epeat.net.
About Channel Intelligence, Inc. (CI)
CI is a product data technology and marketing company focused on helping retailers and manufacturers make their products easier for consumers to find and buy on the internet and in local retail stores. The CI product database is capable of storing, managing, optimizing and analyzing hundreds of millions of products every day. This database powers product data for leading manufacturers and retailers in Computing, Hardware, Tools, Appliances, Consumer Electronics, Toys and other Consumer Product industries such as Apparel, Cosmetics and Jewelry. CI offers innovative suites of services for hundreds of the world’s best known manufacturers, retailers and publishers and provides distribution of product data to over 50 destination websites, including the proprietary CI Ad Network. Cultivating partnerships with some of the best solution providers in the eCommerce arena, CI is a partner company of Internet Capital Group (Nasdaq: ICGE) and Aweida Capital Management. CI was founded in 1999 by CEO Robert Wight and EVP Alan Fulmer and is headquartered in Orlando, Fla., with offices in Geneva, Switzerland and London, England. Learn more at http://www.channelintelligence.com.
