Government launches green partner program

The government's program for purchasing green electronics products has launched a reseller program to make it easier for buyers to find green products.

The Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool, or EPEAT, rates desktops, laptops and monitors based on 51 environmental criteria. The federal government is required to purchase EPEAT certified products.

Under the EPEAT Reseller Partner Program, resellers and solutions provides get access to EPEAT resources, which will help them identify registered products. The resources also will help resellers explain EPEAT ratings and environmental criteria and estimate environmental and cost benefits to customers.

"Understanding and affiliating with EPEAT offers a key advantage in the IT marketplace today," said Sarah O'Brien, EPEAT's outreach and communications director. EPEAT is run by the Environmental Protection Agency. "This program both brings resellers up to speed on the details of the EPEAT system, and identifies reseller partners to end users as reliable sources of EPEAT purchasing assistance."

The EPEAT program is offering sales force training, customizable collateral and a program logo that identifies the reseller partner. Resellers are highlighted at the EPEAT Web site. Message development assistance, press release templates and other resources are available to participating resellers.

"This sort of reseller support is atypical for an environmental ratings program, "O'Brien said. "But we heard from many resellers that they were fielding frequent EPEAT-related queries and wanted to demonstrate their readiness to support EPEAT purchasing initiatives."

The EPEAT Reseller Partner program complements EPEAT's existing relationships with Channel Intelligence and CNET Content Solutions, which provide EPEAT product information feeds to resellers, and with Ingram Micro and Synnex which, as EPEAT Distributor Partners, identify EPEAT rated products for their channel partners.