Features

Green PCs

VeryPC is a computer maker so green it makes Al Gore look like a tyre-burning maniac, holding a lighter to the polar icecaps while knocking down forests with his Humvee. The Sheffield-based manufacturer specialises in desktops and servers that are designed to consume as little energy as possible, a feat that landed the company PC Pro's Environmental Innovator award in 2007. It's surprising, then, that when the company was formed in 2004, it didn't initially set out with a green agenda.

"We were running a small consultancy, not supplying our own hardware - just plugging together other people's," explained Peter Hopton, managing director of VeryPC. "Basically we were having some trouble with hardware from some big-brand vendors and we decided

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to start our own firm to offer hardware as well as services.

"We started the company on an ethical footing. We wanted to provide good quality services to the charity sector. Even then, though, we were disgusted with the power consumption of the Intel Pentium 4. So, one of the things we set out to do was make AMD machines, because they used less electricity, but we never made a point of calling it a green PC, or using that as the selling point: back then nobody really cared. It wasn't until about a year later when we first decided that making a PC with really low power consumption was a good thing, and now it's 95% of the business."

With its green credentials firmly established, VeryPC is ready to move into a new Sheffield-based factory, with the aim of "offering a green equivalent to every sector of the PC market".

"Everyone's banging on about green PCs using less electricity, but for us it's something more than that. It's about producing less waste, making PCs more compact. We want to use the right materials, so they can be recycled properly. We want to see useful products on the other end."

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