The art of appliance labelling

       

Further reading

• CECED - labelling proposal (85)
• Guidebook: Energy efficiency labels and standards (91)
• IEA - Cool Appliances - Policy Strategies for Energy Efficient Homes (84)
• Energy Label Transition – The Australian Experience (83)

Appliance labelling, especially in Europe, has been a tremendous success in many ways, but has unfortunately failed in one important aspect. It has not been dynamic. Technology is improving, but we have run out of classes on the label. Then all of a sudden there is a solution, simple and genial! It is hard to understand why it has not been discovered before.

But first, a few words about the background and the need for good labelling.

Why is labelling needed?

It is because of the very nature of energy efficiency. In all analysis of energy systems, where supply side action is balanced to demand side, the big problem is that the supply side is a simple recognisable commodity whereas the demand side is not. That the Megawatt-hour should be compared to the Negawatt-hour is simple to say but hard to do.

Energy efficiency is invisible and is not even a commodity, but a characteristic with products when you compare them. One is more efficient than the other and efficiency is achieved-delivered when you chose the better one before the other. So to be able to sell and buy energy efficiency to laymen we need to “commoditise” and communicate the efficiency characteristics. The label is such a “commoditising” instrument.

Much has been written about labelling; too much, sometimes. CLASP has published a guidebook that answers most questions one could ever have about labelling. It shows some of the comparison labels that exist in the world.
 

The success of the European label

The European label has been a great success, primarily because it communicates so well. The choice of arrows with different length, colours from red to green, letter for the classes A-G guarantees that whatever mindset the reader has the message will go through. Short, green, A means good – Long, red, G means (comparatively speaking) bad. The model has also been copied in many other countries and also for many products that do not have mandatory requirements to be labelled.

Part of the market transformation in Europe is certainly attributable to the labelling and its good communication performance as is reported by the IEA.

The problem however is that technology performance moves on, ironically also pushed and pulled by the labelling, and we have come to lands end with the classes in the system. One day we only had class A refrigerators and had to introduce A+ and A++ to extend the scale. A system that obviously was not good since we sooner or later will have to add several more pluses. We have run into a labelling cul-de-sac!

Putting dynamics into the label

Australia has had the same experience. They used a classification with six stars and have also come to the end of the scale. After some hesitation they bit the bullet and reformed their system by shifting the scale. They put in a “quality exchange rate” between the old stars and the new so a product that has reached the top six stars could face to have only three in the new scale. When shown side by side, however, it worked.

It seemed as if the whole world had to suffer recurring revisions of this sort. Either that or change to sliding scale showing kWh/utility that many has advocated and that is essentially the US system. It certainly works but it does not communicate well to the layman. Those were the gloomy prospects we were facing.

Till the solution was presented a week ago by CECED! Brilliant in its simplicity. Just turn the scale upside down and replace the letters with figures. G becomes 1 and A becomes 7. Higher figure is better than lower, which most people agree upon. Then we you need to revise the scale just add a higher figure! No more pluses or quality exchange rates. Chapeau CECED!

Energy efficiency is a big thing delivered in small packages. A dynamic labelling system will help us to recognise the right packages!