Joint announcement by the Department of Environment Food and Rural Affairs and HM Treasury

Retailers summit: government to encourage retailers to cut greenhouse gas emissions from consumer electrical goods

Environment Minister Ian Pearson and Financial Secretary to the Treasury John Healey will this afternoon meet eleven of the major UK consumer electronic retailers to discuss how they can help deliver more energy efficient products for their customers.

The initiative, announced in this year's Budget, will look to set up a voluntary partnership for retailers to commit, from next year, to sell energy efficient consumer electronic products, with the aim of significantly reducing carbon emissions from these products by 2010.

Last year, consumer electronics used around 18 terawatt-hours equivalent to the annual output from 5 standard power stations , amounting to 30 per cent of UK's total domestic electricity consumption. Statistics from Defra's Market Transformation Programme show that this could rise to 31 terawatt hours by 2010. This is mainly due to the rise in the number of televisions in people's homes, demand for larger screens and for digital set-top boxes.

Projections show that over 50 million digital set-top boxes will be in UK homes by 2012 - these will need an additional 3.5TWh to power them.

The Summit is looking for major electronics retailers and supermarkets to commit to supply energy efficient products that could reduce the energy consumption of the products they sell, cutting their customers' electricity bills and reducing carbon dioxide emissions.

Retailers will be asked to work with Defra officials to develop detailed proposals following the meeting. .

Speaking at the Defra-sponsored international Energy Efficiency in Lighting and Domestic Appliances conference in London this morning, Mr Pearson said that while the challenge ahead was considerable, there was scope to improve efficiencies, adding that some companies were already leading the way in procuring energy efficient products.

“This is a truly international agenda. We have similar products – and we share the same problem: how to deal with the demand for more and better goods and services while at the same time ensuring that we minimise the effect on the environment.

“Take set top boxes. Some, like those supplied by companies like BSkyB who have signed up to the European Code of Conduct, now provide consumers with boxes that consume around half the energy they did 5 years ago.

“But there are simple digital adaptors you can buy off the shelf in the high street actually use on average around 5 times as much energy in stand-by mode (6w) compared to the most efficient box that was available 4 years ago (around 1W). I would like to see retailers stop selling inefficient digital set-top boxes altogether.

“The Government is deeply serious about reducing energy demand, and we have to now tackle these risks and challenges. This is why I and my Treasury colleagues will be meeting with the major retailers to invite them to commit to set ambitious energy efficiency standards for the consumer electronic products that they sell,” he added.

Mr Healey said: ”Climate change is the greatest environmental challenge we face. Just leaving devices such as TVs and DVD players on standby at home puts up to 1 million tonnes of carbon a year into the atmosphere and costs households around £25 a year. By working in partnership with retailers, this initiative will not only help tackle climate change, it will help cut customers' electricity bills.”

Notes to editors

1   The 4th international Energy Efficiency in Lighting and Domestic Appliances (EEDAL) conference provides a forum for stakeholders and policy makers to discuss and debate the latest developments in energy efficiency and the environmental impacts of residential appliances and lighting, the policies and programmes adopted and planned, as well as the technical and commercial advances in the dissemination and penetration of energy efficient residential appliances, consumer electronics, heating equipment and lighting.

2   There have been three previous EEDAL conferences, which have taken place in Florence (1997), Naples (2000) and Turin (2003). All have attracted a large international audience, representing a wide variety of stakeholders involved in policy interpretation and development, and manufacturing and promotion of energy efficient residential appliances and lighting.

3   Defra's Market Transformation Programme (MTP) supports Government policy on sustainable products. The programme seeks to drive competition and innovation through performance measurement, labelling and standards approaches, informing decisions on EU directives, voluntary industry agreements and government procurement. Until now, it has concentrated on energy but it has a growing capacity to address resource use more generally. More information is available at www.mtprog.com.

4   The first meeting of the International Task force on Sustainable Products was held in London on November 4, 2005. The aim of the Taskforce is to look at how commitments such as those agreed by the G8 at Gleneagles and most recently at the UN's 2nd Experts Meeting on Sustainable Consumption and production, to work to encourage more international co-operation to deliver sustainable products, can be turned into practical actions that will benefit both industrialised and developing nations. The ITFSP's second meeting took place on 20 June in parallel with other meetings to promote international networks and co-operation on product standards involving industry and other experts from USA, China, EU, Australia and wider.

5   Retailers attending the Summit at Number 11 Downing Street include Argos Retail Group (Argos and Homebase); Amazon, Asda, Comet, Dixons Group (Currys); John Lewis, Kingfisher (B&Q); Morrisons, Morphy Richards, Sainsbury's and Tesco.

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