BusinessGreen: How would you summmarise the CEA's approach to improving the energy efficiency of the industry's products?
Douglas Johnson: Well, we've been addressing the issue of sustainability comprehensively for some time. Energy efficiency is one facet of our work, alongside initiatives to improve recycling rates and address issues around hazardous substances. We've definitely invested a lot in improving energy efficiency and we're engaging policy makers to let them know what we have done as an industry and what we are doing. To summarise our position: we are in favour of voluntary, market-oriented programmes to improve consumer electronics' energy efficiency.

What do you mean by voluntary, market-oriented programmes?
One of the most successful and high-profile examples is the Energy Star standard and labelling scheme for the most energy efficient products. It is a voluntary scheme, but by design it creates incentives for manufacturers to reduce power consumption when their products are in stand-by, and now the scheme is expanding to take a more holistic approach to energy use and also take into account products' energy use when active. The scheme has strong participation from manufacturers and two-thirds of consumers recognise the label. The standards used to measure products energy performance are also flexible and can keep pace with technical developments in the industry – something that can't be said of regulations.

So you'd argue that this voluntary approach delivers greater energy efficiency improvements because the standards are constantly evolving, unlike a law demanding a certain level of performance that is more likely to end up set in stone even when manufacturers surpass it?
Absolutely. Regulations simply cannot keep pace with technology. In contrast, we as an industry are working on really up-to-date standards. For example, we're already developing standards for set top boxes and digital TVs, which have only emerged in the past few years. The key to improving energy efficiency in consumer electronics products is to innovate not legislate.

So are you opposing the EU's Energy using Products (EuP) directive, which is mandating environmental design standards on the industry?
The EuP has a degree of flexibility and does address different sectors [of the electronics industry] differently. It does strengthen voluntary programmes and the EU is endorsing the expansion of Energy Star.

How are you demonstrating that these voluntary approaches work?
There is a growing belief among legislators that many businesses fail to comply with voluntary standards and that strong regulation is now needed – just look at the car industry's failure to hit voluntary EU targets to cut carbon emissions. Besides supporting voluntary programmes such as Energy Star, we've also done a lot of work to provide better data about the industry's environmental performance. We noticed that a lot of the figures being quoted on energy use were out of date so we did a full study late last year on every major consumer electronics category – bar digital TVs, where there is not yet a standard energy metric – and undertook a comprehensive assessment of energy use, looking at different energy modes, usage patterns and the number of products and calculated total energy use consumption. We found that residential electronic devices consumed 11 per cent of residential energy in the US, which is not great, but nor is it that bad in context. In contrast, lighting uses up 17 per cent of energy, while space heating uses up nine per cent.

But even if you improve the energy efficiency of products, isn't any reduction in energy use being undone by an increase in the number of products people own?
Our study showed that there is a higher installed base [of consumer electronic products] and that people are using their TVs and computers more, but the issue is around how efficient those products are. If you look closer at the data there has been a decrease in the energy used in stand-by mode in almost all product categories and an improvement in active mode for many products, such as monitors, and those gains are mainly because of Energy Star.

But many would argue that overall energy use has gone up and that is ample evidence that these voluntary schemes aren't working well enough.
Our view is that legislators have to look at how these products are used, and when you do that you see many of them are helping to bring down emissions. For example, one recent study we commissioned showed that where people are using computers and other devices to work from home they are creating a net reduction in carbon emissions. Similarly, if you download films or music instead of going to the store you are also leading to an overall emissions cut. People need to look at the situation holistically and take an overall view of the benefits consumer electronics can deliver.

About Douglas Johnson

Douglas K. Johnson is senior director of technology policy and international affairs for the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA).

He is responsible for public policy issues at local, national and international levels that affect product development, operations, sales and marketing in the $155bn US consumer electronics industry.