Summer is here and in many regions of Europe temperatures are rising. In response to the warmer weather, businesses, shops, public offices and homeowners are turning on the air conditioning. Meanwhile, the European Union is discussing setting minimum efficiency requirements for these products for all 27 member states. Good news, but given the scale of the problem, the European Commission and Member States need to and could become far, far more ambitious. At the very least, they should look carefully at the more ambitious existing and planned air conditioning standards in other parts of the world. Surprisingly, the EU is seriously lagging behind many other countries, such as Japan.

With the fear of repeated heat waves, impulse purchases of air conditioners in many parts of Europe are increasingly common, especially given that many modern buildings are unfortunately badly designed and don’t cope well with the heat. People are rushing to buy cheap air–conditioning or portable air-coolers, without receiving adequate consumer information about the environmental and monetary costs. And once these produces are in place, they may sometimes be switched on even when the weather conditions are not so extreme. Back in April of this year – as she goaded the goose bumps down by drinking scalding tea –  Huma Qureshi of The Guardian begged her managers at the newspaper’s headquarter offices in London to turn off the air conditioning and 'please just open the windows'.

Whether justified or not, air conditioners across Europe are causing damage to the environment in more ways than one. Air conditioners require great amounts of electricity that are largely produced by fossil fuel burning power plants, and so make a substantial contribution to global warming. According to ‘the Carbon Trust’, carbon dioxide emissions from electricity for offices and shops typically double with air conditioning (more information for businesses on how to manage this can be downloaded here).

In the domestic sector, aircon products are already responsible for 30 million tons of CO2 emissions per year over Europe, with a projected trend of 75 million by 2020. This is nearly a tripling…. If this was to happen, the domestic aircon sector would consume more energy and pollute more than all our fridges and freezers over a year.  Moreover, the cooling machines still add to warming with the leakage of their refrigerant fluids – which are often based on climate-killer HFCs.

Unfortunately when people go to the shop or ask an installer and buy air conditioners, they are currently not always aware of the impact this will have on their electricity bill and on the climate. They are also unlikely to be told in the shop whether the product they are buying is suitable for the type of dwelling it will be used in. Products are supposed to carry an European A–G energy label, but this label is currently in need of updating, plus there is evidence that it is not always clearly displayed.

The main problem in the EU is that air-conditioning products are not regulated by any minimum energy performance requirement at the moment, contrary to what happens in other industrialised countries (US, Japan, Australia). This is why Europe has become the dumping ground of cheap poor performing products not tolerated elsewhere. A real shame!

The standards that are currently being discussed under the EU Ecodesign Directive are clearly insufficient to tackle this problem and they are giving way too much time to manufacturers to produce better products. According to Coolproducts campaigners, the current proposed levels of minimum efficiency would still be in 2014 very far from the level of the best products currently available in Japan. Most of the aircon that we buy in Europe are produced by Japanese manufacturers. So why should we allow them to produce lousier products for our market? The EU would still be lagging behind the US and Japan, which is certainly not what we can expect from the continent claiming to lead the international battle against climate change!

As it stands, the European regulations will apply separate, even weaker requirements for mini air-coolers, which are particularly inefficient ways of cooling rooms. Is this an attempt to please the Italian manufacturer of these movable equipment? This would risk encouraging the uptake of cooling appliances and drive an increase in demand, emissions, and energy imports, but also a major strain on the grid during summer’s hottest days – something which a few years ago was partly responsible for a major blackout.

The Coolproducts Campaign calls for tougher EU measures on all air-conditioners, that would discourage impulse purchase and inefficient use, with a promotion of alternative refrigerant fluids and an end to the energy waste in standby modes. A more detailed position paper is available here).

EU Officials bump up energy efficiency for domestic appliances but cave in to industry pressure on energy labels

[Brussels, 1 April 2009] - European environmental NGOs (EEB, Inforse-Europe, Friends of the Earth Europe, Natuur en Milieu and ECOS) welcome this week’s vote by Member States on energy efficiency measures under the Ecodesign of Energy-Using Products (EuP) Directive [1] but fear the level of ambition is insufficient in a time of climate crisis. In addition, EU officials have rushed through a rather confusing revision of the format for the Energy Label for household appliances which will now corrupt the simple A-G system that is currently in place and widely recognised throughout Europe. [2]

The votes on fridges [3], televisions [4] and washing machines will force manufacturers to produce more energy efficient appliances that have the potential to cut CO2 emissions by about 20 Million tonnes (Mt) per year by 2020 (like taking up to 10 million cars off the road each year). However, consumers would have saved even more on their energy bills if the adopted measures had reached their full potential of 30 Mt of CO2 savings. In addition, EU officials caved in to industry pressure and avoided rescaling the famous A-G Energy Label, instead choosing a new system that runs the risk of misleading consumers and has not been tested.

Edouard Toulouse, Ecodesign Officer at environmental group ECOS said: "An ambitious Ecodesign policy and a crystal-clear Energy Label for consumers are vital tools to make our lives sustainable and bring CO2 emissions down in the most cost-effective way." He added: "Televisions and fridges were very iconic tests for these policies. We expected bolder ambition." NGOs are also worried that the two products to come next under these policies - boilers and water heaters, with enormous CO2-cut potential and the same level of emissions as the transport sector - may not deliver enough [5].

Nathalie Cliquot, Product Policy Officer at the European Environmental Bureau (EEB) added: "Industry pressure prevented EU decision-makers from going for the greenest options and ensuring energy inefficient products are clearly flagged with simple A-G labels." She continued: "At least there will be a serious review of these instruments in 3 to 4 years, but in the meantime we must continue to explain why these policies are so important through the ‘coolproducts’ NGO campaign." [6]

Contacts:

Nathalie Cliquot, Product policy officer at the European Environmental Bureau (EEB)
, +32 (0)2 289 10 97 (French, English)

Edouard Toulouse, Ecodesign officer at ECOS (coordinating the input of Environmental NGOs in these policies)
, +32 (0)2 289 1096 (French, English)

Gunnar Boye Olesen, INFORSE-Europe
, +45 86 22 70 00 (Danish, English)

Notes for Editors:

[1] The EuP and Energy Labelling directives aim at setting minimum environmental performance and consumer information requirements on products sold in the EU. The EU aims to become 20% more energy efficient by 2020. Ambitious eco-design rules have the potential to cut Europe’s CO2 emissions by 450 million tons per year by 2020 - equivalent to the emissions of all European cars.

[2] The EU has revised the well known A-G energy label layout and introduced it for new product categories. Energy Labelling has been one of the most visible and successful EU-wide tools to inform consumers and achieve energy efficiency. However, the current revision adds confusing new classes named "A-20%", "A-40%", instead of rescaling the label to reflect how products have meanwhile become more efficient, so that the "A" grade remains the top of the class.

[3] Fridges and freezers. Despite technological progress in the past, substantial energy savings are still achievable. Also, the growth in appliance size and stock has annihilated part of the previous gains. The current electricity consumption of the domestic fridges and freezers stock on the market is 100TWh.

[4] Televisions: The environmental impact of TVs is an increasing concern. Without very serious policies, the yearly energy consumption of the European stock is expected to increase by 70 TWh in the next 10 years - representing as much as the overall household consumption of Italy. Lack of recyclability and recycling of flat screens is also a serious environmental issue.

[5] For more information on the large potential for energy savings and CO2 emission reductions in the heating products sector, please see this NGO briefing: "EU Ecodesign policy for boilers and water heaters, a huge and underestimated opportunity for climate policy "

[6] A coalition of environmental NGOs launched the "coolproducts" campaign on 12th March 2009. On the day of the launch, partner groups organised a "penguin refugee camp" in front of the European Commission. In addition, Avaaz delivered a petition signed by 116,829 citizens (which has meanwhile increased to 140,000) to the EU Commission asking for more stringent energy efficiency requirements for products sold in the EU.

As Coolproducts launches, we hear from Friends of the Earth and the Netherlands Society for Nature and Environment that a group of "penguins" will set up on Thursday 12th November a penguin refugee camp made of refrigerators just outside the European Commission's Berlaymont Building, in Brussels. A mass petition signed by European citizens will also be delivered to EU negotiators by Avaaz.org.

Environmental organisations are urging Europe not to agree weak energy efficiency measures and confusing changes to energy labels for key appliances this week. Experts from European Union member states will vote on ‘green’ standards for household appliances like televisions and fridges and how to update or introduce new energy labelling of these products. Environmental groups call on European decision-makers to stop caving in to industry pressure and strengthen the proposals so that Europe can meet its environmental and climate change targets.

The EU aims to become 20% more energy efficient by 2020. According to the Netherlands Society for Nature and Environment and Friends of the Earth Europe, ambitious eco-design rules have the potential to cut Europe’s CO2 emissions by 450 million tons per year by 2020 - equivalent to the emissions of all European cars!

Increased efficiency of products to be voted on this month, including electric motors (11 March), fridges (13 March), televisions (17 March), dishwashers (30 March) and washing machines (31 March) could account for a 100 million ton CO2 saving annually.

Find out more from Friends of the Earth Europe

Many electrical products sold in Europe have a colour-coded energy rating system, from A to G. A is the most energy efficient and G the least. It’s as simple as that. The label has been copied all over the world. It has worked so well in promoting energy efficient products that most products sold in Europe have an A or a B rating. So, if you buy a product rated B you may think it’s still pretty good, when in reality it’s the most inefficient!

We now need to upgrade the label and make sure A and B only really include the best products. But some companies who manufacture these products do not want this upgrade (See Guardian blog)

Is it perhaps that they don’t want us, consumers, to know their products are not as efficient as we think? That’s not what they claim. Of course, they claim if we don’t accept their labels, then millions of jobs will be lost. With this argument, they have heavily lobbied the European Commission and Member States to change to a different, incredibly confusing label, including both letters and numbers.

Now governments in Germany, Italy, Spain, Poland and other Eastern European countries are supporting this very questionable proposal, which goes against our interests as consumers and as citizens concerned about energy bills and climate change. If they win, we will lose one of the most successful tools in the world to reduce energy demand and people’s electricity bills.