New developments in the design and manufacturing of computers, printers, and other electronic devices are reducing the use of materials that are harmful to the environment and also saving on energy consumption. These efforts can have a significant impact on the lifecycle costs of the equipment for schools and other consumers.

To see just how much money these efforts can save schools, check out the series of energy calculators on Dell Inc.'s web site. Using these calculators, you can input several variables relating to your environment and figure out how much you'd save in both carbon emissions and dollars, depending on what products you buy.

According to Dell, a classroom with 30 Optiplex 745 computers with Pentium D processors, Energy Smart power management, and 17-inch flat-panel monitors would save about $1,896 a year in energy costs. By replacing the Pentium D with a Core 2 Duo processor, which uses even less energy, this same classroom reportedly would save about $2,082 a year in energy costs.

Dell is in the vanguard on environmentally friendly, or "green," computing. At the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January, Dell Chairman Michael Dell announced a new "Plant a Tree for Me" program, in which the company offered to plant a tree for every PC sold. Customers can opt to have $2 of each laptop purchase, or $6 of each desktop purchase, go toward a fund to plant trees around the world.

"We're the first global technology company to offer customers the opportunity to offset the emissions associated with the electricity used to power their computers," said Dell, who also announced that his company would be the first to recycle used computers at no cost to consumers (see side story).

But Dell is by no means alone in the green computing movement. Apple Inc. has completely eliminated cathode-ray tube (CRT) displays from its inventory. Hewlett-Packard Co. says it's the first Tier 1 computer maker to meet the new "80 Plus" performance specification for energy-efficient power supplies. And IBM has unveiled a new program, called Big Green Innovations, intended to help customers look at ways to reduce energy and waste. The program will offer consulting services to help school systems, corporations, and other enterprises design more energy-efficient data centers and otherwise reduce energy consumption, according to the online news source CNET.

The federal government has gotten into the act, too. The Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool, or EPEAT, is a web site run by the Environmental Protection Agency that aims to help consumers, businesses, organizations, and schools evaluate, compare, and select desktops, notebooks, and monitors based on their environmental attributes.

The tool evaluates products according to three tiers of environmental performance: Bronze, Silver, and Gold. Its complete set of performance criteria includes 23 required criteria and 28 optional criteria in eight categories, such as reduction or elimination of environmentally sensitive materials, product longevity or lifecycle extension, and energy conservation. To qualify for acceptance as an EPEAT-certified product, the equipment must conform to all required criteria and might have its score boosted by conforming to some of the optional criteria.