More power doesn’t mean better performance, and the modern day cleaner, which uses the energy of 10 large-screen TVs combined, should stop sucking up so much power.
Does a more powerful vacuum cleaner necessarily clean better?
Today’s trend is for manufacturers to sell us more "powerful" vacuum cleaners in the hope of improved dust cleaning and filtering. However the link is unproven. More power does not necessarily mean better performance. This leads to energy waste and it is time to stop this unsustainable, money wasting trend through EU regulation.
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Vacuum cleaners: stopping the trend towards ever increasing power
Since the 1960s the power of vacuum cleaners has been increasing from a typical 500 Watts to over 2,500 Watts today (exceeding the power of 10 big TV screens combined).
There appears to be little evidence that this very large increase in energy consumption has been matched by a proportionate increase in cleaning performance. We are not the only ones saying this: it has been clearly stated by the European Commission and hasn’t been challenged by any other stakeholder.
Trapped with the false assumption that more power means better cleaning and filtering, consumers and salespeople now often consider the power as the main criteria for purchase. This pushes innovation towards rising power consumption instead of towards better cleaning and energy efficiency, as it should be. At EU level, the waste of electricity due to this trend is estimated to be 20 TWh/year, equivalent to the residential electricity consumption of 12 million EU citizens and responsible for as much CO2 emissions as around three million cars today on the road.
The whole industry itself recognises that there is no strict correlation between power and cleaning performance. The design of the appliance is the essential factor to explain performance. There is a still relatively untapped marketing potential for innovative products balancing low power consumption and great cleaning and filtering performances. By using a well performing vacuum cleaner of 1000 Watts instead of 2500 Watts, a European consumer can also save money over the lifetime of the product.
That’s why the coolproducts campaign asks the EU to take action and set power caps and minimum cleaning performance requirements on vacuum cleaners under the Ecodesign policy.
This will rid the market of excessively powerful and poorly performing products while leaving choice for consumers. All vacuum cleaners on the market should at least ensure a certain level of dust removal, both on carpets and hard floors, while not exceeding a certain level of energy use. An additional energy label is also necessary to help consumers in their purchase decision.
Where industry is still divided is on the link between cleaning performance and time spent for vacuum cleaning. Some argue that increased cleaning performance should reduce the number of strokes consumers apply to remove dust. Less time vacuuming means also less energy use over a year. As a consequence, this part of industry claims that any energy rating should take the cleaning performance into account. Others argue that consumers’ habits remain mostly unchanged by the cleaning performance of the vacuum cleaner. As a consequence they favour an energy label simply based on the power used.
Coolproducts’ position is that the energy label should remain simple and easily verifiable to avoid free riders. It should inform primarily on the energy use of the product, but could also reward very high cleaning performance through a bonus or specific mention. Last but not least, vacuum cleaners should not pollute our in-door air by re-emitting dangerous particles. The filtration performance can a have health impact and keeping it as low as possible is a must. This factor has been taken into account in the discussions at EU level and will not be compromised.
EU regulation can save energy while ensuring efficient and healthy vacuum cleaners and still a large choice for consumers. The decision has been delayed for more than a year and coolproducts calls for a quick entry into force.
(By Stephane Arditi of EEB and Edouard Toulouse of ECOS)