To continue balancing the credibility of EPEAT with the reality of ongoing global impacts from the COVID-19 pandemic, in December 2021 GEC authorized the EPEAT Program to issue new temporary conformity assurance modifications for 2022. The modifications took effect on January 1, 2022 and were based on stakeholder outreach and consultation that was undertaken in Q4 2021. Since none of the temporary COVID-19 conformity assurance modifications were used by any Participating Manufacturers in 2022, the policy modifications were withdrawn as of January 1, 2023.
Throughout 2022, GEC regularly published an EPEAT Program Monthly Transparency Report to enable all EPEAT Program stakeholders to understand how the COVID-19 pandemic impacted Participating Manufacturers, and to communicate how the temporary COVID-related conformity assurance modifications were being used by Participating Manufacturers. The final EPEAT Program Monthly Transparency Report (for December 2022), is now available and summarizes the use of COVID policy modifications by all active EPEAT Participating Manufacturers from December 1, 2022 to December 31, 2022.
The Global Electronics Council (GEC) recognizes that since the pandemic began, businesses large and small have faced a plethora of challenges ranging from staffing shortages and raw material constraints, to diminished production capacity, and transportation logistics issues. Since April 2020, GEC has been actively monitoring these and other COVID-related impacts to EPEAT Program activities and will continue to do so to ensure GEC remains responsive to any future COVID-19- related challenges.
For any questions, please email us at EPEAT@gec.org
