What does a gas powered clock radio (that might put you to sleep permanently with carbon monoxide poisoning), and a room air cleaner that consists of a feather duster and fly strips taped to the front of a space heater, have in common? They both are now the proud recipients of the Energy Star certification, casting doubt on the true meaning of the certification for others.
The Energy Star program was introduced by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 1992 as a voluntary labeling program designed to promote-and help consumers identify-energy-efficient products. As of 2009, over 40,000 individual product models were Energy Star-qualified by over 2,400 manufacturers. Sadly, it now appears that the certification may have lost some of its meaning due to the carelessness with which the certification is given.
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) found the Energy Star program certification process vulnerable to fraud and abuse by submitting absurd and ridiculous ideas and actually having most of them approved.
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April 2, 2010 at 8:47 AM
AwarenessHomeFunding
So much for relying on awards and certifications to help sort through the information on selecting various products and services. Guess we’ll need to go back to good old fashioned homework and maybe word of mouth. Then again with social media, that word of mouth is a lot easier now too.