Going Green with Energy Star

Coming up with excuses for why one cannot "be green" used to be easy. One might say things like, "It's too inconvenient" or "I just don't have the money to live that way because not being green is cheaper." However, with the ever growing market of greener products, living an environmentally clean lifestyle has never been easier. In fact, projects such as Energy Star have made living green an easy task for everyone.

Energy Star is a joint project between the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Energy that focuses on encouraging consumers to lead more environmentally friendly lifestyles, while using monetary savings as a main incentive. While the Energy Star project officially began through the US EPA in 1992, only in the past ten years or so has its popularity really increased. Energy Star products focus on both business and home products that cut down on energy use and cost, thereby minimizing the CO₂ emissions from the use of such products.

Energy Star products for the home include energy saving furnaces, heat pumps (air sources or geothermal types) and programmable thermostats to keep your home at a fixed temperature. In fact, programmable thermostats can save the average American home about $180 per year in their energy bill. However, besides just selling products that help consumers cut down on their energy usage (and thus make their lifestyles greener), Energy Star also offers free tips for homeowners to get the most out of their already installed household fixtures. For example, Energy Star suggests that homeowners seal and insulate their heating and cooling ducts as a way of saving energy (and money); doing so can make a heating and cooling system 20 times more efficient. Energy Star also encourages people to change their air filters regularly (every month as an ideal but at least every three months), as dirty air filters will slow down the circulation and efficiency of warm or cool air circulation.

In addition to encouraging homeowners of older homes to lead green lifestyles, Energy Star also works on encouraging builders to construct Energy Star qualified new homes. To qualify as an Energy Star home, a house must be at least 15% more energy efficient than homes built to the 2004 International Resident Code. Typically these Energy Star homes are actually 20-30% more energy efficient than the average house.

Today, less than 20 years since the inception of the Energy Star concept, the project has already made a huge impact on the world. The 2009 annual report shows that in 2009 alone, Energy Star helped businesses and homeowners save about $17billion. This incredible monetary sum amounts to even an more incredible reduction in the pollution of the environment, showing that with Energy Star everyone-the earth and people-wins.