We all know the A-G Energy Label rainbow. From the top, it starts with the A-rated green bar of a highly energy-efficient product, moves through the D-rated yellow bar of medium energy efficiency, and down to the E-rated red bar of energy inefficiency. 

Claude Turmes, Luxemburgish Member of the European Parliament (MEP) said the appliance producers “may have qualified themselves for next year's 'Worst EU lobbying awards' for their misleading campaign”. But with this vote, “they fortunately failed to secure a system that would continue to grant an A grade efficiency label to virtually all of their products.”

This political deadlock can now only be solved through a negotiation between EU decision-makers, in the framework of the revision of the Directive for Energy Labelling. In the meantime, the European Parliament has managed to block the new label for televisions, but failed to do so with the proposed new label for fridges. Therefore, it is as if the European Parliament had sent two contradictory messages. This unprecedented political situation, due to the nature of these votes and the different numbers of votes required, should not hide the fact that a majority of MEPs has expressed strong doubts about the industry way.

And Environmental NGOs and the Cool Products Campaign insist that this political imbroglio should not delay the adoption of other important energy efficiency measures on products.

You probably wouldn’t show off a new boiler to friends when they come round for dinner. The bulky, might we say rather uninspiring, machine is purely functional. While it provides your home with heat and hot water, no matter how useful it is the boiler just doesn’t hold the same appeal as the latest flat screen TV or the hottest new PC. But boilers have the potential to provide great value to the consumer. In fact an energy efficient boiler could become your prize appliance by single-handedly slashing your energy bills and reducing your household green house gas emissions.

After the March votes by European experts on fridges, televisions, washing machines and the A-G energy labelling system, boilers and water heaters will be up for consideration in the coming months. Once again, there is great potential for significant reductions in both green house gases and household energy bills. In fact these machines that we use to heat our homes and our water contribute 25% of total carbon dioxide emissions in the European Union.

The proposed energy efficiency measures could be much more ambitious. Take for example a medium-sized water heater. The models currently on the market have an average energy efficiency of 35%. That means approximately two thirds of the energy used to run a water heater is lost. More technologically advanced models have efficiency levels of 50%. Unfortunately, the proposed measures require a level of only 36%.

Industry lobbies have exerted pressure and succeeded in weakening the measures that will soon be voted on. To bolster their case for weaker requirements, lobbyists have pointed to reluctant consumers who are apparently loath to pay for more efficient heaters. On the contrary, recent surveys show that Europeans are highly concerned about climate change and believe the European Union can do more to combat it. What is more, as with more efficient TVs and fridges, consumers stand to gain from more energy efficient boilers and water heaters with savings on their utilities bills.

Experts from EU member states convened last week to decide on the first in the series of votes on energy-efficient and ecologically sound appliances. The first vote was on electric motors. This may sound strange to non-experts, but electric motors are used widely in industry and account for around 70% of the electricity used by that sector. The final decision will lead to annual use-phase electricity consumption savings of about 135 TWh by 2020, corresponding to an annual reduction of 63 Mt of CO2 emissions. These savings correspond to about the annual electricity consumption of Sweden. Coolproducts welcomes this key decision, but also thinks the measure could have been even more ambitious - as industry has managed to achieve several delays for small motors and other additional exemptions.

Some member states, including the UK, also thought there could have been more ambition. Lord Hunt, UK Minister for Sustainability said: "Given the importance of tackling Climate Change, in the UK we were keen to go further, faster and it is disappointing that other countries did not agree with us on this. The European motor market is lagging behind the rest of the world."

Meanwhile, the vote on fridges was postponed because of a lack of agreement on the energy labeling revision (we wrote about this in our earlier blog post silly numbers).

This will have disappointed climate activists from environmental groups BUND, SNM and Milieudefensie who had dressed up as penguins last Thursday and camped in front of the European Commission in Brussels.

Avaaz also joined the penguin camp to present decision makers with the 125,000-strong petition for coolproducts (you can see a short video here). This was presented to Gerard Legris, the European Commission's head of unit Transparency and Relations with Stakeholders, who attended the event on behalf of the President ot the Commission Jose Manuel Barroso. The petition has also been presented to the Czech Presidency of the European Union.

There was a lot of media at the penguin camp, as well as a lot of interest from passers-by, and the penguins made it to "photo of the day" in the online version of the Wall Street Journal and on San Francisco Chronicle. Environmental group SNM was also interviewed on prime time TV in the Netherlands. There was also coverage on NRC.next and Financieel Dagblad, as well as Spanish and even Korean news agencies. A useful and detailed article on this appeared on the Euractiv news site.

Thanks to our friends over at Avaaz.org, well over 120,000 European citizens signed a petition for ambitious energy efficiency requirements for products sold in the EU, and numbers continue to grow. Perhaps they were convinced after watching this video of a Coldy3000, a fridge from the future?

Thanks to all supporters who signed the petition - which will be delivered to decision makers in Brussels Thursday - and thanks to Avaaz and all coolproducts partners for their hard work! If you want to stay up to date with what happens in the next few weeks, and months, please go to our sign up page. 

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