ENERGY STAR Overview

ENERGY STAR Overview Graphic

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. Together, since 1992, ENERGY STAR and its partners have helped save American families and businesses $430 billion on their energy bills*—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 2015, with a sales value of more than $100 billion. 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®, is used to measure and track the energy performance of nearly 500,000 commercial buildings—representing 50 percent of all commercial floor space 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. Top-performing buildings and plants can earn EPA’s ENERGY STAR, which, for certain property types such as commercial real estate, has been shown to command a premium of up to 16 percent for sales prices and rental rates.3 Learn more about ENERGY STAR for commercial buildings and industrial plants.

ENERGY STAR for homes

Entire homes can also earn the ENERGY STAR, meaning they are 15% – 30% more efficient than typical new homes. And there are more of these homes available than ever before: Eighty-eight percent of the nation’s largest homebuilders build ENERGY STAR certified homes, helping to bring the total to more than 1.7 million homes built as of 2016. Additionally, in 2016, 79,000 homeowners retrofitted their existing homes for improved energy efficiency through the Home Performance with ENERGY STAR program. Learn more about ENERGY STAR for homes.

ENERGY STAR and the economy

ENERGY STAR certified products, homes, buildings, and plants helped save Americans families and businesses 503 billion kWh of energy and $34 billion on their energy bills* in 2015 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.2 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 all of the energy sector—and ENERGY STAR is an integral part of that market.2

ENERGY STAR and the environment

ENERGY STAR provides flexibility and lowers the cost for states as they design and implement their plans to meet their environmental goals, including their Clean Air Act requirements. ENERGY STAR enables these benefits by reducing energy use through voluntary action, thus helping to decrease emissions of associated pollutants and their corresponding negative health and environmental impacts, such as those related to ozone, fine particles, acid rain, and regional haze. In addition, ENERGY STAR has helped states and local governments achieve their climate goals by preventing 2.8 billion metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions from 1992 – 2015.

References

  1. National Awareness of ENERGY STAR® for 2016: Analysis of 2016 CEE Household Survey, EPA Office of Air and Radiation, Climate Protection Partnerships Division, 2017, http://energystar.gov/awareness.
  2. U.S. Energy and Employment Report, U.S. Department of Energy, 2017, https://energy.gov/downloads/2017-us-energy-and-employment-report.
  3. Benchmarking and Disclosure: Lessons from Leading Cities, Boston Green Ribbon Commission, 2012,http://www.abettercity.org/docs/06.2012%20-%20Benchmarking%20report%20-%...

* Estimated energy cost savings represent the present value of net energy cost savings, calculated by taking the difference between total energy bill savings and the incremental additional investment in energy-efficient technologies and services.