The IT hardware NMSO is a Government of Canada wide procurement vehicle that represents an annual spend of $175 to $200 million. The NMSO commodities include microcomputer-based desktops and monitors, notebooks, thin clients, and servers. The NMSO is the main procurement vehicle used by all client departments and features 19 NMSO suppliers, both multinational and small- and medium-sized enterprises.

Electronics Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT) Silver criteria will become mandatory in the federal government's next NMSO for desktop and notebook comput- ers and monitors. EPEAT gold levels will be optional and will be awarded extra feature points through the NMSO bench- mark testing process (http://canada.nstl.com/SipssWebSites/ Report 2008). The EPEAT standard addresses a broad range of environmental considerations: levels of hazardous materials, recydability, energy usage, design for end-of-life/disassembly, durability, and packaging amongst others, through the use of 23 required criteria and 30 percent of an additional 28 optional criteria.

MDG Computers Canada Inc. has acknowledged the work of the PWGSC team (led by [Ian Kirk]) stating that "By establishing these green requirements within the NMSO specifications and by awarding escalating discounts for higher levels of "green" achievements, Ian's team has created a mindset among suppliers that encourages efforts to reduce power consumption of shipped computers, utilize recycled packing materials (cardboard boxes and foam) and establish customer take-back and reuse programs, so landfills stop filling up needlessly with material that can be re-used."