Radian Compliance Management Services

It’s the year of green, so SMBs can expect a flood of sales pitches hawking greenness—not just for products that you need, but for ones to replace existing equipment that you’ll be told is outdated and wasteful. But do be careful: There’s often a lot of misinformation in these pitches. Take APC’s new Back-UPS ES 750 UPS (we’ll review it in an upcoming issue). Touted as the company’s first green UPS (uninterruptible power supply), the Back-UPS ES 750 adds a "Master/Controlled Outlet," which senses when the device plugged into it goes to sleep or ceases drawing power. When that happens, the UPS shuts off power to that outlet. This is important, because even when your devices aren’t eating power, outlets are still "juiced" and draw a significant amount of power.

The unit is compliant with RoHS (Restriction of Hazardous Substances, the European Union directive), meaning you won’t find more than trace amounts of lead or other toxic chemicals in it (batteries, disposed of separately, excepted), and it uses recycled packaging. But the new power-management circuitry is the ES 750’s main claim to green. Other backup companies will likely start selling boxes with new lithium ion batteries, not just because they last longer but because dumping them is supposedly easier on the environment. This effectively doubles the greenness—of the pitch. APC says the recycling programs for lead-acid batteries are more reliable than any kind of disposal for lithium ion. The company has chosen to keep using lead-acid until lithium ion recycling catches up.

This’ll be a common "gotcha": You’re presented with a green sales pitch for replacing existing equipment. But when you look closer, you may find that the newest technologies still have a ways to go before achieving true greenness, and the benefits they’re touting can often be had simply by using what you own now more intelligently.—The Five Steps >