The Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers (AHAM), CSA Group, and UL Environment recently announced the release of AHAM 7001-2012/CSA SPE-7001-12/UL 7001, Sustainability Standard for Household Refrigeration Appliances, the first voluntary sustainability standard for home appliances. This new standard is the first in a family of product sustainability standards under development by AHAM, CSA Group, and UL Environment intended for use by manufacturers, governments, retailers, and others to identify environmentally preferable products. The standard is based on a lifecycle approach for identifying the environmental impacts of refrigeration products in five key areas: energy, materials, end-of-life, performance, and manufacturing.

This standard will serve as an objective and practical measurement tool to assist refrigeration manufacturers in evaluating the environmental sustainability of home appliances. The three organizations next will form consensus committees to move the standard through the U.S. and Canadian accredited standards process, following the requirements of the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and the Standards Council of Canada (SCC), respectively.

Throughout the standards development process, a cross-section of stakeholders, including the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Environment Canada, The Sustainability Consortium, Consumer’s Union, and retailers such as Sears, Best Buy, and Lowe’s, and environmental groups including the Carbon Disclosure Project were engaged to ensure that the standard is credible and compatible with existing government and retailer initiatives. PE INTERNATIONAL and Five Winds Strategic Consulting served as a project manager for this project.