Research and analysis

Saving energy through better products and appliances

This document assesses the UK's progress in meeting its objectives to save CO2 through effective product policy, and where future efforts should be focused.

Documents

Saving energy through better products and appliances

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Details

Appliances and products that use energy, such as white goods, lighting, televisions, heating and cooling systems and electric motors contribute significantly to the UK’s CO2 emissions. The Government has objectives to reduce these impacts, which includes the removal of the worst products from the market and promoting the sales of the most-efficient products. This document considers all these policies and interventions holistically as “product policies.”

Defra has, on a regular basis, updated its evidence base, which covers a large number of domestic and non-domestic energy-using product groups. This document assesses the UK’s progress towards meeting its objectives to save CO2 through the implementation of effective product policy, and where future efforts should be focused. It sets out the Government’s current performance standards (also referred to as “Government Standards”) for energy-using products, projected from the present day to 2030. Government, business and consumers should aim to deliver and use products that meet the performance levels set out in the standards.

This overview report presents a cross-cutting analysis of product policy for the UK. Information about policies affecting specific product areas is set out in nine product-specific annexes and five shorter annexes for products not yet subject to policies.

Updates to this page

Published 16 June 2011

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