The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released the following statement:
Dear ENERGY STAR® Office Equipment Stakeholder,
As many of you know, the United States and the European Union share a bilateral agreement on the ENERGY STAR program specific to Office Equipment. This agreement reflects the two regions’ commitment to collaborating on and making use of harmonized ENERGY STAR requirements for Office Equipment. In place since 2000, the most recent renewal of the agreement is scheduled to expire in December 2011.
Recognizing the important value this agreement offers to our Office Equipment partners, EPA is writing today to share the good news that negotiation of the next five-year renewal of this agreement is now complete. On November 29, 2011, U.S. EPA Administrator Jackson and EU Energy Commissioner Oettinger initialed the agreement before being distributed to EU Member States for their concurrence. EPA expects this administrative process to be complete in the first half of 2012. The new agreement continues harmonization on computers, imaging equipment, displays, and servers and will be updated with enterprise storage, small network equipment, and uninterruptible power supplies as these ENERGY STAR specification development efforts are completed.
The success of this collaboration is extraordinary, and it is a testament to the continuing commitment of partners like you to develop and market energy efficient Office Equipment. Estimates show that in the last 5 years the U.S. ENERGY STAR program for Office Equipment resulted in savings of more than 223 TWh and energy bill savings of $22 billion. For the EU market, estimates show that in the last 3 years the EU ENERGY STAR Office Equipment program resulted in savings of more than 10 TWh and energy bill savings of 2 billion euros.
