The TCO Certified certification was initially created by the Swedish Confederation of Professional Employees to guarantee that computer products purchased by employers maintain ecological standards and were sufficiently ergonomic to prevent long term health issues for users. It rose to fame during the 1990s as a certification for computer displays. Dating back to 1992, TCO is one of the oldest certifications for end user electronics.
History
In the early 1980s, the Swedish Confederation of Professional Employees, a worker's union, foresaw that computers would become an important work utility and sought to establish ergonomic and radiation standards for computer displays to protect their members from health issues by daily use. Back then, the increasing use of computers and monitors in white collar work environments caused widespread complaints from employees experiencing visual fatigue and visual stress during after-work hours. In fact, early generations of computer displays were frequently related to eye strains and headache due to flickering, jitter and radiation. In 1986, TCO published a basic list of requirements and test protocols to verify if a display was fit for continuous daily use as a help for employers to choose the right hardware for work places. The test became an early success and was translated into multiple languages and used also by unions in other countries to push for a more ergonomic work environment. The success of the display checklist resulted in the foundation of TCO Certified, a spin-off by the TCO Union headed by Per Erik Boivie and Peter Magnusson, among others, with the goal of creating an international certification and standards to be implemented directly by manufacturers. Starting with TCO'92 in 1992, the TCO certification minimum standards for emissions, jittering and electronic safety for computer monitors. Later on, the standards into other product categories such as peripherals and the computer itself.
TCO Certified requirements
Since 1992, TCO publishes new guidelines every 3-4 years. The standards expanded from covering only computer monitors in 1992 to a wide array of devices today.
In 1995, the next generation of TCO Certified was released, TCO'95. TCO'95 expanded the scope of TCO certifications from display units to the computer itself and the keyboard covering also ergonomic aspects in addition to all requirements already outlined in TCO'92. TCO'95 also significantly tightened ecological standards by requiring manufacturers to exclude certain CFC or HCFC compounds from production in addition to remove chlorine solvents and any ozone damaging compounds from the production. Expanding the requirements also to peripherals such as keyboards, ergonomics became a benchmark of the certification orthogonality in addition to subjects such jittering and flickering of displays.
TCO'99
TCO'99 saw a further tightening of energy saving and consumption requirements. While the radiation emission requirements remained unchanged, the testing protocols were tightened to reduce outcome variability of testing. TCO'99 further tightened requirements for displays regarding luminosity and flickering / jittering in addition to introducing new requirements for text clarity to ease eye stress due to display usage. In addition noise limits were introduced to displays. TCO'99 also the introduction of rules to ease recycling. Offering recycling and trade-in procedures became mandatory for manufacturers. Plastic components weighing more than shall be reduced to a single type of plastic reducing problems with separations of different components during recycling.
Product categories
TCO Certified is available for the following products: displays, notebooks, tablets, smartphones, desktops, all-in-one PCs, projectors, headsets, and data center products: network equipment, data storage products and servers.
