Saint Mary's University
OP-10: Computer Purchasing

We select the model of our desktops, laptops, and monitors through a competitive process once a year. We started the process in December and did not find out about EPEAT until after we had gone to the vendors so it was not included. On all our purchases we have a standard clause requesting information on the manufacturer’s environmental initiatives and equipment features. It will be several more months before we need to select the desktops, laptops or monitors again. From my perspective, we can change our environment clause to include EPEAT and make it a scored requirement. Of course it would be one of many factors that would define the specification of the equipment and be used in the selection along with price.
Since we are relatively new to EPEAT we have not added it to our purchasing policy. The best we could do is to provide an example of an specification document.
Since all IT purchases are done through ITSS and Procurement, enforcement of any policy or practice is easy.
There is no total amount spent on computers as many of the purchases are made through other departments. Though we sign off on them, we don’t keep records of the purchases.
Since we have never had EPEAT as a requirement we have not tracked it. However, the EPEAT web site and our purchases this year are all registered. Our monitors (Acer V203H CJbd) are Silver, laptops (Toshiba Tecra R700 PT318c) are Gold, and desktops (HP 6005 Professional Small Form Factor) are Gold. Based on this, our EPEAT purchases should be close to the total computer purchases.