Energy labelling and sustainable products
These regulations cover the energy efficiency labelling of certain products and set minimum energy efficiency standards
They include provisions to enforce the use of the EU energy label, which shows energy efficiency ratings for products (generally from A to G), and provisions to enforce EU-wide minimum energy efficiency standards for individual products, such as fridges and TVs.
You can find 2 regulations that relate to energy labelling below to the left.
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Ecodesign for Energy-Related Products Regulations 2010 The Regulations transpose the European Framework Directive which allows for individual product minimum energy efficiency standards to be introduced, thereby contributing to climate change targets and reducing product running costs for consumers and businesses.
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Energy Information Regulations 2011, SI 2011/1524 These regulations aim to inform consumers of the relative energy efficiency of products such as fridges and TVs.
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Tell us what you think should happen to these regulations and why, being specific where possible:
- Should we scrap them altogether?
- Could their purpose be achieved in a non-regulatory way (eg through a voluntary code?) How?
- Could they be reformed, simplified or merged? How?
- Can we reduce their bureaucracy through better implementation? How?
- Can we make their enforcement less burdensome? How?
- Should they be left as they are?
I am in the wood stove, wood boiler industry. There are to many regulations all overlaping. The main problem is that each appliance should be CE tested @ £4,000 a go. This are not manditory and cheap imports from Southern Europe and China are often not tested.
Then you have to test again for DEFRA, similar test but more of them, cost £ 2,500 a go.
The standards or so low on both tests, that nearly every stove passes. Our stoves & cookers developed at great cost are 1/10 of the smoke allowed by DEFRA, but figures are not published, so consumers cannot compare.
Then, although we are in the EC, Germany, Austria & Denmark all have there own regulations. More testing. Then if you want to export to USA, more testing as they measure different peramiters yet again.
Either a wood burning appliance is clean and efficient or it is not, so one set of regulations that are enforced and consumers can see the results of is all that is required.
There is a proposal in Europe for an ABC label, but the A was so low that every stove in the world was an ‘A’, some use that would be!
The regulations should be left as they are.Comment Tags: triciab
The regulations are to low a standard and need looking at. Go and try and buy a fridge. They are all ‘A’s and now have A* and A** intruduced by the better companies. When emision standards were intruduced in the 70′s in California, there was no engine in production that came anywhere near the standards set. This led to research – the cam belt – over head cams – multi valve – then injections and computer controls. Low standards are a waste
of time.
Both sound sensible and I think should probably be left as they are. A voluntary code would be pointless
I do not believe in over-reaching governance nor over-regulation. However, businesses do have a record of abusing shared resources. This abuse necessitates citizens to pay the bill for their inefficiencies, their products’ inefficiencies, for restoration of the shared resources, for escalated costs of resources and the need to live with these and other consequences of corporate decisions.
My recommendation is not to micro-manage industry with burdensome regulations, but to furnish consumers with the information for them to make decisions based on what is ‘right’ for them. The recommendation specifically is to require businesses to affix information to their products that permit the customer to make informed choices to support a particular company and the manner they do business or not. The effect of this action is regulation by market – not by government.
I recommend that in addition to efficiency ratings and costs of operation (as applied to refrigerators), totals of values on a per unit sold basis be affixed to all products. The values accounted for in this should be from point of first origin of first industrial input to the point of distribution, sale or consumption (dependant upon product). Components reported should include consumed and effluent water, fuel consumption (possibly indexed to fuel source distance), emissions of nasty outputs and counter points of jobs created (by location), contribution to society (good deeds from profits) and positive environmental contribution (including but not limited to sequestered CO-2, eliminated noxious substances and net ecological benefit).
These calculations should be done by means of standardized accounting formulae specific to the task, subject to audit (and public reporting) and validated for the consumer by a mark of verification. In this way, the government provides the mandate to report and establishes the validation of the data – the rest is up to the consumer to make their own decisions.Comment Tags: CO-2, Community Responsibility, Consumer Choice, Corporate Regulation, Corporate Responsibility, Efficiency, energy, Product Labelling, Public Policy, Reduction, Responsible Manufacturing
We must have strong, and properly enforced legislation to ensure that appliances are made as energy-efficient as possible, in their manufacture, their transport, their use and their eventual disposal. I believe the Government needs to regulate for greater energy-efficiency in all these aspects if it is serious in its aim of being green and in achieving its climate change commitments. It cannot rely on voluntary measures which clearly do not work. Slackening of any laws on energy efficiency will be extremely costly to our environment and to everyone in the long term. It is essential for consumers to be able to make informed choices based on compulsory, standardised and unambiguous labelling on all aspects of a product’s carbon footprint.
Such regulation and labelling is most helpful providing information and helping to reduce energy usage and carbon footprint. Such regulation should be retainbed and strictly enforced. The only change should be to make this more effective. Voluntary codes do not work.
energy labelling in incredibly useful when making purchases and is easy to understand. This helps to raise awareness of energy consumption and identifies the products which will not bump up your energy bill. labelling supports the energy conservation messages.
Legislation has been very useful in raising awareness and helping to reduce carbon footprint.
Regulations should be kept and enforcement strengthed.
Leave it as it is. I use the labelling when I buy appliances.Comment Tags: energy efficiency
I’d like more energy labelling, not less. I don’t think voluntary codes are effective. I’d like manufacturers to be required to provide some basic information on energy use, as well as what went into manufacturing the item.
For example, when [text deleted] launched an elegant and expensive new fan heater recently, the questions we were all asking were on energy use and running costs. [text deleted] preferred to concentrate on appearance. Business and the community do not always have the same priorities.Comment Tags: Energy labels
needs to be strengthened and better enforced. how can we conserve energy without accurate reliable information in a form that any one can understand. to think manufacturers will do this voluntarily is a nonsense, they have not done so yet
Product labelling of this type provides a well recognised, well understood source of information for consumers, assisting them in making informed choices. It is an important consumer protection measure, as it provides an objective comparison of products, rather than allowing companies to ‘greenwash’ inefficient products.
To provide consumers with additional information, it would be beneficial to include on the ratings (possibly on a separate scale) information regarding energy consumed in production of the product (including transport costs). That may also encourage companies to create/keep manufacturing bases in Britain, and consumers to buy british produced goods (which will have far lower transport footprints)Comment Tags: consumer protection, energy, Manufacturing
This is a good piece of legislation as far as it goes. Information of this type is essential if we as consumers are to make decsions. The information needs to be of a standard format so that proper comparisons can be made.
I look forward to a time when the information includes energy for manufacture transport and disposal at end of life information as well.
My comment is about energy efficiency. I have passive solar water heating so the greenest thing for me would be to use the hot water in my appliances. But I found I couldn’t buy a washing machine that allows a hot fill, and someone said that this was because of energy efficiency regulations. This seems perverse, if true. Please can these regulations be reviewed so they don’t prevent people from doing what’s best for the environment.Comment Tags: cold fill appliances, energy saving products, solar water heating
Its essential that consumers can identify and select the most energy efficient products at point of sale, whether that be a TV or a washing machine. A consistent energy label does that, but historically, voluntary schemes have not worked in the UK. If the Government is committed to being the “greenest ever” then additional incentives are required to encourage the supply chaing to present the energy rating to their consumers. The other route would be to endorse one of the leading labelling schemes that already exist such as the Energy Saving Trust Recommended markComment Tags: Energy labels
As a consumer energy efficiency labels are one of the main factors in decision making. If energy labels were made optional rather than mandatory I think different manufacturers would use different environmental measures/indicators (to suit themselves) such as carbon footprint, air miles, 100% of recycled materials and this would make comparisons of products very difficult.
However I am not sure of the merit of requiring energy ratings before the product comes to market (ie at trade fairs etc).
SI 2011/1524 is now an easily recognised and widely understood labelling system. It takes little extra effort to maintain it and considerable time and money would be wasted on any plans to greatly redesign it. This said, small tweaks may lead to imrpovement in the impact of the labels. Indicators that show 5 year costs would be difficult to generate and contain a high error margin but the link between the label bands and ongoing costs does need to be made more explicit.If people do not know what the labels mean or if their meaning does not alter consumer choice then alterations should be tabled.
The number and type of products covered under the labelling system should also be reviewed and an online platform for product comparison for all products using the labelling system should be easily accessible, perhaps through the energy saving trust. Long term, a small percentage levy on for the bottom bands should be considered.
Ecodesign for Energy-Related Products Regulations is a very important part of achieving our national and EU CO2 reduction targets. While it may be suggested that placing restrictions on the specifications of products can mean that the UK and europe may then restrict trade in the products or increase the manufactoring costs it is generally the case that the technology to meet the targets alredy exists and that when such legislation is EU wide (so long as increases are incremental) manufacturers will meet the standards to meet the market opportunity and that these standards then filter out and become a default global standard. For this reason it is important that the UK take a lead with our EU cousins to challenge the energy efficiency of individual products and do so in a way that allows industry to respond. A challenging but long term implementation timetable for reduction standards should therefore be announced and government should lobby the other large EU economies to follow suit.
Making these regulations enforcable instead by voluntary code alone would be disasterous as it does not then name and shame the worst products or manufacturers. To make their implementation and enforcement less burdensome a voluntary implementation period should be suggested to key players within the retail sector with some early enforcement areas selected in consultation with them as pilots to learn from before full implementation.
Why would you scrap a perfectly decent system that consumers are now used to and replace it with a voluntary scheme, that will ultimately lead to a degredation of the amount of information given to consumers. It just needs to be refined to ensure it clear and understandable.
Labels play a vital role in providing consumers with information on which to make considered choices. If anything they should be strengthened not removed. The key is to make sure they are clear and easy to understand for consumers. For example they could present the 5 year running costs at each category for a stated electricity cost – that might give consumers more basis on which to decide whether to purchase a more efficient appliance. Without such information we’ll never make the efficiencies required to achive our legally binding target of 80% reduction by 2050 (50% by 2027).