Advocates Want Energy Star to Keep ‘Primary’ Focus on Efficiency

Efficiency advocates aware of the EPA’s efforts to factor into the Energy Star program other environmental attributes like end-of-life handling of consumer electronics are cautiously embracing the move. Groups like the Appliance Standards Awareness Project, which pushes for efficiency standards at the state level, pleaded ignorance of the EPA move because they don’t participate in the agency’s Energy Star standards setting process.

If the proposal leads to expansion of the “recycling infrastructure and opportunities for consumers especially around products they have apprehensions about because of their end of life issues, we certainly encourage” it, said an official of the Northeast Energy Efficiency Partnerships. But NEEP hopes Energy Star keeps its “focus on being a differentiator in the market first and foremost based on efficiency,” said David Lis, appliance standards project manager. NEEP draws up model state legislation for efficiency of appliances and electronics.

Energy Star has used other means to “move the market,” Lis said, citing the agency’s inclusion of a water efficiency factor in specifications for clothes washers and dishwashers. “As long as the primary focus of Energy Star is differentiating products based on efficiency, we will consider on a case-by-case basis” whether to support inclusion of other environmental factors, Lis said.

But the Electronics TakeBack Coalition has wholeheartedly embraced the concept. Energy Star’s embrace of lifecycle issues would be a “significant advance in value” of the program, said Barbara Kyle, the group’s national coordinator. Research shows that 80 percent of the energy usage for a computer and monitor occurs during manufacture, she said. It’s “good” to make the products more energy efficient, she said, “but if that’s missing most of the actual energy usage,” there’s no reason to limit the evaluation just to “that narrow focus,” she said. Kyle said she supports efforts to look at the “full life cycle energy use, including energy used in production, resource extraction, and product recycling."

The Consortium for Energy Efficiency hasn’t formulated a position on the inclusion of factors other than efficiency in Energy Star, said Seth Wylie, the group’s residential program manager. The consortium, which represents efficiency program officials in the states and in utilities, draws up incentive programs that its members can use to drive the market for energy efficient electronics and other products. The consortium hasn’t discussed the issues with members yet, he said.

"I think the program would be best served to focus on energy use and energy efficiency,” said Mark Sharp, group manager of Panasonic’s corporate environmental department. There are other programs that deal with environmental attributes outside of energy efficiency, he said. The EPA’s consideration of “non-energy factors does appear to be increasing and this does seem to be a case of mission creep,” said one CE executive. “This is occurring at a time when there are some fundamental concerns about the Energy Star program’s direction,” he said.

Asked if CE makers will be able to meet Energy Star requirements unrelated to efficiency, a TV maker executive said not much is known about what other environmental attributes would be included in specifications: “And that may be part the reluctance of manufacturers to support the idea.”