Call for green label on laptop chargers

Jonathan Watts
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 28 October 2009 15.40 GMT
If laptop users were willing to pay an extra two dollars to upgrade their power supply units, the world could save more than 200m tons of carbon a year, according to a leading component supplier in Taiwan.
Delta Electronics, which makes more than half of the boxes at the end of the world's power cables, wants consumers to be informed of the carbon and energy efficiency of its products so that they can make a choice about whether to pay extra for greener computers.
The current energy efficiency standard for switching power supplies on laptop computers is 87%, though many firms fit devices that fall well below this level.
Delta says its best equipment could reach 93% for $1 or $2 more. It is not yet widely adopted because computer firms such as HP and Dell are reluctant to pass on the cost to consumers.
"The point is, consumers never know the efficiency of their computers," said Delta Electronics' founder and chairman, Bruce Cheng. "We are serious in our efforts to reduce global warming by our unrelenting research into ever more energy efficient products."
The firm expects to sell about 63m adaptors this year. With an improvement of eight percentage points, it estimates the average laptop could save 8.8kWh a year.
"Consumers should ask for higher efficiency. That's why we want a carbon label on goods. We would be the biggest benefactor," said Emelie Yeh, a company spokesperson.
Taiwanese firms supply most of the IT components, fans and power supply adaptors in computers and household appliances. Peter Rowling, of the environmental consultancy ERM, welcomed the push to inform the public. "This is good because carbon labelling is about disclosure, but what is important is that it looks at the whole life cycle of the product. We also need to know the energy and resources that go into products."
Taiwan is moving in this direction. Last month, AU Optronics, a leading producer of LCD televisions, announced one of Taiwan's first carbon-footprint verification schemes. Other firms are expected to follow.
Delta, however, said users could make big energy savings simply by switching devices off when they are not used rather than leaving them on standby. The company estimates that 5% of the world's household electricity is wasted this way each year – equivalent to the annual output of a 12GW power plant.