The problem with Energy Star

The following is a guest column by Christine MacDonald, author of the just-published "Green, Inc., An Environmental Insider Reveals How a Good Cause Has Gone Bad” (Lyons Press)

An article in the current issue of Consumer Reports magazine lambasts the federal Energy Star rating system as outdated and so riddled with loopholes that way too many greenhouse gas-guzzling appliances get qualified for the energy efficiency label.

It’s not the first time questions have been raised about the joint program of the US Environmental Protection Agency and the US Department of Energy meant to help consumers choose appliances that are lighter on power usage and their electric bills. The General Accounting Office last year broached similar concerns. The GAO reported, for instance, that TVs are tested in standby mode because the Energy Star standards are so old they were written for black-and-white sets.

This month’s Consumer Reports article looked at refrigerators, finding they consumed much more electricity than advertised when put through the nonprofit watchdog group’s “comparative energy tests, which are tougher than the Department of Energy's and better resemble how you use a refrigerator.” One model used more than twice the electricity claimed on its Energy Star label.

The controversy is yet another facing environmental certification standards that have proliferated as consumers grow increasingly concerned about global warming. The drive to provide consumers with ways to identify eco-friendly products has largely fallen short, critics say.

Certification systems that have run into trouble include the Forest Stewardship Council’s (FSC) sustainable forest products standard, which calls for protection of “high conservation value” woodlands. But the FSC allows logging in old-growth woodlands, which has angered activists who have spent decades campaigning to save rapidly vanishing ancient forests. Activists in New Jersey bitterly denounced a decision by Ocean City officials to purchase FSC-certified “ipe” wood from a Brazilian rainforest to refurbish part of a seaside boardwalk in 2007.

“If the 'ipe' trees were 30 years old when you logged them, then you could argue that this is sustainable. But these trees are 250 to 1,000 years old. That is not sustainable at all, Tim Keating, executive director of Rainforst Relief told the New York Times.

The Marine Stewardship Council, established by World Wildlife Fund and Unilever to label wild-caught fish; the Global Aquaculture Alliance, spearheaded by Wal-Mart and Conservation International to market “sustainably” farmed seafood; and the LEED green building protocol have also come under fire. Critics say they – respectively – allow for depletion of fishing stocks, pollute shorelines and slap “environmentally-friendly” labels on McMansions.

While these programs deal with different merchandise, one thing they have in common is input from companies involved in buying, selling or manufacturing certified products. There is evidence to suggest that those commercial interests have overrun initial good intentions, leading to standards that activists deride as little more than token gestures; half measures unlikely to stave off global warming or save endangered species.

Take the Energy Star program: Started in 1992, it is one of the oldest and best known. But both the Consumer Union and the GAO concluded that it no longer delivers on its promise to help consumers identify the most energy efficient products because the bar is set so low that most appliances qualify in some product categories. For instance, 70 percent of the dishwashers on the market met Energy Star standards, the GAO noted in its October 2007 report. Consumer Reports went so far as to suggest manufacturer input can dilute the standards.

Other certification programs bear the stamps of approval from leading environmental groups. These certification processes, however, have been assailed for doing more to solve corporate public relations problems than reward truly sustainable product offerings. The same environmental groups overseeing the certification systems take hefty donations from the corporate interests that stand to benefit from using the “sustainable” product labels to market their products.

The WWF, for instance, counts Marine Harvest, which calls itself “the world’s leading seafood company and largest producer of farmed salmon,” and Wal-Mart, one of the country’s leading seafood retailers, among its corporate partners. Wal-Mart chairman Rob Walton is a member of Conservation International’s board of directors and the Walton Family Foundation donated $21 million to the organization. Such conflicts of interests have raised eyebrows and lowered expectations for the
certification programs orchestrated by these nonprofits.

Unless the labels get tough and start delivering on their promises, consumers are going to lose confidence in them altogether. From what we’ve seen so far, however, it remains to be seen if the government overseers and nonprofit watchdogs are up to the task.

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