Standards

Contents

• ITIL — UK
• R of HS — UK
• LEED — US
• NEC
• EPEAT
• Energy Star
• WEEE — EU
• ASHRAE
• SpecPower
• EPA and DOE

ASHRAE(American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air Conditioning Engineers )

The American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air Conditioning Engineers is an international technical society for all individuals and organizations interested in heating, ventilation, air-conditioning, and refrigeration (HVAC&R). The Society, organized into Regions, Chapters, and Student Branches, allows exchange of HVAC&R knowledge and experiences for the benefit of the field’s practitioners and the public. ASHRAE provides many opportunities to participate in the development of new knowledge via, for example, research and its many Technical Committees. These committees meet typically twice per year at the ASHRAE Annual and Winter Conferences. A popular product show, the AHR Expo, is held in conjunction with each Winter Meeting. The Society has approximately 50,000 members and has headquarters at Atlanta, Georgia, USA.

CERCLA(Comprehensive environmental response compensation and liability act)

Superfund is the common name for the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (CERCLA), a United States federal law designed to clean up sites contaminated with hazardous substances. Superfund created the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR), and it provides broad federal authority to clean up releases or threatened releases of hazardous substances that may endanger public health or the environment. The law authorized the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to identify parties responsible for contamination of sites and compel the parties to clean up the sites. Where responsible parties cannot be found, the Agency is authorized to clean up sites itself, using a special trust fund.

Energy Star

Energy Star is an international standard for energy efficient consumer products originated in the United States of America. It was first created as a United States government program during the early 1990s, but Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, Taiwan and the European Union have also adopted the program. Devices carrying the Energy Star logo, such as computer products and peripherals, kitchen appliances, buildings and other products, generally use 20%–30% less energy than required by federal standards.

EPEAT

EPEAT, which stands for Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool, is an easy-to-use, on-line tool helping institutional purchasers select and compare computer desktops, laptops and monitors based on their environmental attributes. EPEAT was developed using a grant by EPA and is managed by the Green Electronics Council (GEC). It is dedicated to informing purchasers of the environmental criteria of electronic products.

EPA

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA or sometimes USEPA) is an agency of the federal government of the United States charged with protecting human health and the environment, by writing and enforcing regulations based on laws passed by Congress. The EPA was proposed by President Richard Nixon and began operation on December 3, 1970, after Nixon submitted a reorganization plan to Congress and it was ratified by committee hearings in the House and Senate. The agency is led by its Administrator, who is appointed by the president and approved by Congress.

Eco-Management and Audit Scheme (EMAS)

EMAS (Eco-Management and Audit Scheme) is a voluntary environmental management system (EMS), under which companies and other public organisations evaluate, manage and continuously improve their environmental performance. EMAS has been operative since 1995. The latest revision (EMAS III) came into effect on 11 January 2010. Currently, more than 4,400 organisations and approximately 7,600 sites are EMAS-registered.

Ecodesign for Energy Using Products (EUP)

The European Union’s Framework Directive on Eco-Design of Energy-Using Products (Directive 2009/125/EC) establishes a framework to set mandatory ecological requirements for energy-using and energy-related products sold in all 27 Member States. Its scope currently covers more than 40 product groups (such as boilers, lightbulbs, TVs and fridges), which are responsible for around 40% of all EU greenhouse gas emissions. The ultimate aim of the Eco-Design Directive is that manufacturers of energy-using products will, at the design stage, be obliged to reduce the energy consumption and other negative environmental impacts of products. While the Directive’s primary aim is to reduce energy use, it is also aimed at enforcing other environmental considerations including: materials use; water use; polluting emissions; waste issues and recyclability.

Gramm-Lach-Bliley act ( GLBA) :

The Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act (GLB), also known as the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999, is an act of the 106th United States Congress (1999–2001). It was signed into law by President Bill Clinton and it repealed part of the Glass–Steagall Act of 1933, opening up the market among banking companies, securities companies and insurance companies. The Glass–Steagall Act prohibited any one institution from acting as any combination of an investment bank, a commercial bank, and an insurance company.

The Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act allowed commercial banks, investment banks, securities firms, and insurance companies to consolidate.

HIPAA(Health insurance portability and accountability act)

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) of 1996 (P.L.104-191) [HIPAA] was enacted by the U.S. Congress in 1996. According to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) website, Title I of HIPAA protects health insurance coverage for workers and their families when they change or lose their jobs. Title II of HIPAA, known as the Administrative Simplification (AS) provisions, requires the establishment of national standards for electronic health care transactions and national identifiers for providers, health insurance plans, and employers.

Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL)

The Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) is a set of concepts and practices for Information Technology Services Management (ITSM), Information Technology (IT) development and IT operations.

ITIL gives detailed descriptions of a number of important IT practices and provides comprehensive checklists, tasks and procedures that any IT organisation can tailor to its needs. ITIL is published in a series of books, each of which covers an IT management topic. The names ITIL and IT Infrastructure Library are registered trademarks of the United Kingdom’s Office of Government Commerce (OGC).

LEED

Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design (LEED) is an internationally recognized green building certification system, providing third-party verification that a building or community was designed and built using strategies intended to improve performance in metrics such as energy savings, water efficiency, CO2 emissions reduction, improved indoor environmental quality, and stewardship of resources and sensitivity to their impacts.

Developed by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), LEED is intended to provide building owners and operators a concise framework for identifying and implementing practical and measurable green building design, construction, operations and maintenance solution

RCRA (Resource Conservation and Recovery Act)

The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), enacted in 1976, is the principal Federal law in the United States governing the disposal of solid waste and hazardous waste.The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) gives EPA the authority to control hazardous waste from the “cradle-to-grave.” This includes the generation, transportation, treatment, storage, and disposal of hazardous waste. RCRA also set forth a framework for the management of non-hazardous solid wastes. The 1986 amendments to RCRA enabled EPA to address environmental problems that could result from underground tanks storing petroleum and other hazardous substances.

Restriction on Hazardous Substances (RoHS).

RoHS, also known as Lead-Free, stands for Restriction of Hazardous Substances. RoHS, also known as Directive 2002/95/EC, originated in the European Union and restricts the use of six hazardous materials (lead, mercury, cadmium, hexavalent chromium , polybrominated biphenyls, polybrominated diphenyl ether ) found in electrical and electronic products. All applicable products in the EU market after July 1, 2006 must pass RoHS compliance. RoHS impacts the entire electronics industry and many electrical products as well. Any business that sells applicable electrical or electronic products, sub-assemblies or components directly to RoHS countries, or sells to resellers, distributors or integrators that in turn sell products to these countries, is impacted if they utilize any of the restricted materials.

SOX(sorbanes oxley)

The Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002, also known as the ‘Public Company Accounting Reform and Investor Protection Act’ (in the Senate) and ‘Corporate and Auditing Accountability and Responsibility Act’ (in the House) and commonly called Sarbanes–Oxley, Sarbox or SOX, is a United States federal law enacted on July 30, 2002, which set new or enhanced standards for all U.S. public company boards, management and public accounting firms. It is named after sponsors U.S. Senator Paul Sarbanes (D-MD) and U.S. Representative Michael G. Oxley (R-OH).

The bill was enacted as a reaction to a number of major corporate and accounting scandals including those affecting Enron, Tyco International, Adelphia, Peregrine Systems and WorldCom. These scandals, which cost investors billions of dollars when the share prices of affected companies collapsed, shook public confidence in the nation’s securities markets.

It does not apply to privately held companies. The act contains 11 titles, or sections, ranging from additional corporate board responsibilities to criminal penalties, and requires the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to implement rulings on requirements to comply with the new law.

SPECpower

Specpower is the first industry-standard benchmark that evaluates the power and performance characteristics of volume server class computers. It is available from theStandard Performance Evaluation Corporation (SPEC). SPECpower is SPEC’s first attempt at defining server power measurement standards. It was introduced in December, 2007.

Several SPEC member companies contributed to the development of the new power-performance measurement standard, including AMD, Dell, Fujitsu Siemens Computers, HP, Intel,IBM, and Sun Microsystems.

 

 

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