ENERGY STAR Overview
ENERGY STAR® is the government-backed symbol for energy efficiency, providing simple, credible, and unbiased information that consumers and businesses rely on to make well-informed decisions. Thousands of industrial, commercial, utility, state, and local organizations—including more than 40 percent of the Fortune 500®—rely on their partnership with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to deliver cost-saving energy efficiency solutions. Ninety-percent of American households recognize the ENERGY STAR, making it one of the most widely recognized consumer symbols in the nation. Together, since 1992, ENERGY STAR and its partners have helped save American families and businesses more than $450 billion and over 3.5 trillion kilowatt-hours of electricity while also achieving broad emissions reductions—all through voluntary action.
ENERGY STAR products
ENERGY STAR is the simple choice for energy efficiency, making it easy for consumers and businesses to purchase products that save them money and protect the environment. EPA ensures that each product that earns the label is independently certified to deliver the quality, performance, and savings that consumers have come to expect. It’s that integrity that led Americans to purchase more than 300 million ENERGY STAR certified products in 2016, with a market value of more than $100 billion. In fact, an average of 800,000 ENERGY STAR certified products were sold every day in 2016, bringing the total to more than 5.8 billion products sold since 1992. Learn more about ENERGY STAR products.
ENERGY STAR for businesses and organizations
ENERGY STAR tools and resources help businesses determine cost-effective approaches to managing energy use in their buildings and plants—enabling the private sector to save energy, increase profits, and strengthen their competitiveness. From commercial properties such as hospitals, schools, and offices, to industrial facilities such as cookie and cracker bakeries and integrated steel mills, thousands of businesses and organizations look to ENERGY STAR for guidance on strategic energy management.
The program’s popular online tool, ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager®, has been used to measure and track the energy performance of hundreds of thousands of commercial buildings across the nation. For eligible buildings, the tool calculates a 1–100 ENERGY STAR score, which has become the industry standard for rating a facility’s energy performance. Studies find that ENERGY STAR certified buildings command a premium of up to 16 percent for sales prices and rental rates. Learn more about ENERGY STAR for commercial buildings and industrial plants.
ENERGY STAR for homes
New homes can also earn the ENERGY STAR, meaning they are at least 15% more efficient than those built to code and include additional energy-saving features to deliver a performance advantage of up to 30% compared to typical new homes. And homebuyers have more energy-efficient homes to choose from than ever before: nearly ninety percent of the nation's largest homebuilders build ENERGY STAR Certified New Homes, helping to bring the total to more than 1.9 million homes built as of 2017. Additionally, in 2017, 91,000 homeowners retrofitted their existing homes for improved energy efficiency through the Home Performance with ENERGY STAR program. Learn more about ENERGY STAR for homes.
Utilities and local governments rely on ENERGY STAR
Nationwide, utilities invested $7.7 billion in energy efficiency programs in 2015. With hundreds of disparate utilities scattered around the country, EPA plays a critical unifying role to guide their energy efficiency programs. EPA enables utilities to leverage ENERGY STAR as a common national platform, avoiding the creation of hundreds of independent utility programs across the nation, which could fragment the market and stall innovation. More than 700 utilities, state and local governments, and nonprofits leverage ENERGY STAR in their efficiency programs, reaching roughly 95% of households in all 50 states.
Additionally, as of the end of 2017, 26 local governments and two states rely on EPA’s ENERGY STAR Portfolio Manager® tool as the foundation for their energy benchmarking and transparency policies, creating uniformity for businesses and reducing transaction and implementation costs.
ENERGY STAR and the economy
ENERGY STAR fosters economic development, greater competitiveness, and a healthy environment. ENERGY STAR certified products, homes, buildings, and plants helped save Americans families and businesses nearly 400 billion kWh of electricity and over $30 billion on their energy costs in 2016 alone. Moreover, by increasing energy efficiency, ENERGY STAR is supporting U.S. energy security and helping improve the reliability of the electricity grid.
Additionally, according to the U.S. Energy and Employment Report for 2016, 290,000 American workers are involved in the manufacture of ENERGY STAR certified products and building materials. The report also projects that employment in energy efficiency will grow much faster than other areas of the energy sector—9 percent in 2017 vs. average projected growth of 5 percent across the entire energy sector—and ENERGY STAR is an integral part of that market.
ENERGY STAR and the environment
ENERGY STAR contributes to improved environmental quality and public health. Through voluntary action, ENERGY STAR provides states and local governments with more flexibility and reduced costs towards meeting their air quality requirements and their health and environmental goals. In 2016 alone, ENERGY STAR helped Americans save approximately 400 billion kWh of electricity with associated emission reductions of 320 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions, 300,000 short tons of sulfur dioxide, 220,000 short tons of nitrogen oxides, and 23,000 short tons of fine particulate matter (PM2.5). Since 1992, ENERGY STAR associated greenhouse gas reductions have reached 3.1 billion metric tons.
For additional details about ENERGY STAR achievements see energystar.gov/numbers