EPA Seeks to Recognize Display Makers for Emissions Reporting, Reductions

The EPA is looking at ways to recognize display makers that report and take steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in manufacturing and the supply chain, stakeholders on an Energy Star specification-revision call last week were told. “The goal of the Energy Star program is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and traditionally it has been during the use phase,” Christopher Kent, Energy Star product manager, said on the call seeking stakeholder comments on revisions to the Energy Star display specification. But the agency now wants to explore “opportunities to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from either manufacturing or, for some product categories, recycling of the product,” he said.

The position of several IT makers is that “we would rather the Energy Star specification limit its activities to product energy efficiency and not expand the scope into manufacturing” and other areas, said a representative of one display maker. He wanted to know whether the agency has “made up its mind” that Energy Star will move “beyond product energy use” or whether other environmental factors would be dealt with “as a separate effort,” he said. The EPA said it wants to “guard against unintended consequences where non-use phase GHG impacts are similar to or exceed use phase impact.” It’s interested in knowing about manufacturer efforts to reduce GHG emissions especially those concerning nitrogen trifluoride, sulphur hexafluoride and carbon tetrafluoride.

Kent told us later that the agency hasn’t decided how to deal with manufacturers’ efforts to reduce greenhouse gases. “We are exploring opportunities for ways to recognize partners who are capturing those gases either through the supply chain or their own manufacturing process.” End-of-life recycling is not being considered for displays, he said. It will be a factor for other product categories “where recycling might have a large environmental impact such as refrigerators or foam used in insulation for domestic appliances.” The agency already has proposed evaluating Energy Star products for environmental benefits other than energy use. It has told manufacturers that as it takes up revision of the Energy Star specification for computers, the agency will evaluate the presence of toxic materials, water use in production, and end-of-life disposal or recycling, in a “multi-attribute analysis."

The market penetration of the Energy Star display specification is “fairly high,” Kent said on the call. So levels for version 6.0 will have to be stricter to meet the requirement that Energy Star represents the “top quartile” of the products on the market, he said. The agency has identified some displays that haven’t been Energy Star-qualified and wants data on testing from manufacturers, so they can be considered for inclusion in the spec, he said. On the automatic brightness control feature in displays, Kent said that “we need to find a way” to change the test method to “ensure we are testing these things appropriately and the energy savings from the end-consumer are actually achieved” with the feature enabled.