ENERGY STAR and Beyond

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As you stroll through the appliances or electronics aisle in your favorite department store, in recent years you may have noticed a small blue (sometimes black, white, or yellow) label on various products.  Looking closely, the label reads “Energy Star”.  Or while you were reading through the owner's manual of that new electronic device you just bought, you may have come across the sentence “This product meets energy star requirements."
 
What is ENERGY STAR? How can it help you? And, what are its limitations? These are some questions we are going to look at.  
What is “ENERGY STAR”?  According to energystar.gov, the “ENERGY STAR is a joint program of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Energy helping us all save money and protect the environment through energy efficient products and practices.”  

The ENERGY STAR program does this by reviewing products that consume electricity and determining whether or not they are efficient.  According to the website, as of today, “The ENERGY STAR label is now on over 50 product categories including major appliances, office equipment, lighting, and home electronics.”  

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), who first introduced the label, in 1992, now allows the label to be placed on new homes and certain buildings.  

The only general guideline the EPA uses to determine whether an item may receive the ENERGY STAR is whether or not it is energy efficient.  In doing this, it has come up with specific specifications for many different categories of products. These Specifications are continually reviewed and revised based on current market trends and new developments in technology, engineering, and the manufacturing of parts.

ENERGY STAR can help people in several ways.  According to  energystar.gov, ENERGY STAR rated products can save you money, “With ENERGY STAR, you can save more than 30% or more than $700 per year, with similar savings of greenhouse gas emissions, without sacrificing features, style or comfort.” It can also help you by providing another way to contribute to the cause of living green.  

As helpful as it is, ENERGY STAR is not a “fix all” solution.  There are still a few other things that you can do to maximize the energy efficiency of anything you buy whether or not, the item you purchase carries the ENERGY STAR certification.  When you purchase a certified item, by reading the product manual, you can usually discover why (or not) the product meets ENERGY STAR, for example, for many computer monitors and/or laptop screens, upon investigation you may find that the product carries the label because during it's stand-by or hibernate settings, it uses minimal power.  Simply shutting it off or unplugging it would consume zero power which is even more effective.  On the other hand, if one changes the settings, and a product were left on all the time, that would defeat the purpose of having the label in the fist place.  

So, looking for items that carry ENERGY STAR is, in a general sense, a good habit to get into for purposes of saving money and/or protecting the environment by using products that ultimately contribute to lowered green house gas emissions. However, to fully utilize the effectiveness of ENERGY STAR, it is important to know how to fully maximize its effectiveness by reading your product manual or seeking online support from energystar.gov.   Doing this along with adopting some good habits like using timers, automatic shut-off switches, powerstrips, and simply shutting electronic devices off (not stand by, sleep, or hibernate) can help to go beyond ENERGY STAR.