Social Constraints to Eco Efficiency: Refrigerators and freezers - SIFO

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2The EU Energy label (Rubik & Frankl ed. 2005) is an effort in a similar direction; apractical-political attempt at transforming western lifestyles in this more sustainable direction.It is perhaps rather more modest than the Factor Four visions, but Energy labelling isinfluencing the behaviour of a great number of individuals or households, as well as changingindustry. Slowly, the least efficient household appliances are phased out of the Europeanmarket. The aggregate effect of this change should be reduced energy use, meaning reducedcarbon dioxide emissions.If we generalize from this theoretical model of increased energy efficiency of consumerappliances, then, we should expect the improved products gradually to replace inefficientones. After a while, households’ consumption of energy for cooling and freezing foodstuffsshould decrease. How fast this effect will come into being depends on the replacement ratesfor freezers and refrigerators. This is perhaps even better than effortless sustainability,because the consumer saves money as well, due to reduced electricity bills.The materialFor the author, the National Institute of Consumer Research (SIFO) and for the University ofTromsø, Norsk Gallup Institutt a/s in December 1998 conducted a nationally representativetelephone survey to 1025 respondents on questions of product durability. The survey wasfinanced by the Norwegian Research Council.Covering refrigerators, freezers, TVs and stereos, the survey focus on questions of thenumber of years the household has had its present product, how it was acquired, the reasonsfor replacing the previous product if the household has replaced an older product and, if it has;what happened to the obsolete product. The research was conceived as study of productdurability and possible effects of durability for the environment.Is long lifespan or quick product exchange beneficial for the environment?The basic assumption is that generally, it is environmentally advantageous to increase the lifespan of products.Product durability is an old theme in research on the environmental effects of consumption(Cooper 1994, Cooper & Mayers 2000, Heiskanen 1996, Hille 1993, Strandbakken 1997 andothers). With some exceptions, the basic assumption seems to be correct. Most of theexceptions concern household durables that consume substantial amounts of energy in the usephase when more energy efficient alternatives are available, and the focal point of thediscussion is the relative size of the indirect energy component in consumption (Hille 1996).To a large degree, this controversy is limited to motor vehicles and washing machines,because they consume much energy when in use, and refrigerators and freezers because theyconsume energy continuously. At some point in such a product’s life span it may beadvantageous – from a total energy use perspective – to exchange the old product for a newone. To our knowledge, rather few detailed studies of such decisions have been published.One exception is mentioned by Heiskanen (1996, p. 12-13):The washing machine study she refers to concludes that a household that bought a newwashing machine in 1973, and exchanged it for a new one in 1983, in 1990 would haveconsumed less energy than a household that kept the old machine. Thus, total energy use isnot reduced until seventeen years into the service life of the first product.This result depends on the exchange being done at the optimal point in time, withpurchase of state of the art technology. This does not mean, however, that one should changewashing machine every tenth year. That decision will have to take account of the rates of
3energy efficiency improvement for the specific product type in the given period. Theenvironmental choice between durability and energy improvement is not easy, not even forthe households’ most energy consuming machinery. What we are able to say, however, is thatwhen a product anyway is about to be replaced, the consumer should chose the energyefficient ones.The durability of the product, here defined as the number of years the average householdkeeps it before it is replaced, should indicate how long it might take to renew a givenpopulation of household machinery. Even at this rather simple level, we recognise thatproduct durability is a crucial constraining element in the eco efficiency revolution. If theaverage life span of a deep freezer is 10 years, the transition to more eco efficient freezersshould take something like 10 years, provided that consumers replace their present modelswith the environmentally improved alternatives. Theoretically, this exchange could bespeeded up by introducing government subsidies for exchange, or by a price increase forelectricity, combined with information campaigns.There are however, as we will show further on, more obstacles to the efficiency revolutionthan the mere slowness of product exchange. Or we might state it differently: The exchangerate for cold appliances actually seems rather correct, given the “historical” pace of energyefficiency improvement. Energy efficiency of appliances is, however, not necessarily identicalto the energy efficiency of consumption (Throne-Holst 2005).Consumption of refrigerators and freezers in NorwayWe have reasons to believe that the introduction of freezers as mass products in Norway israther similar to the rest of Western Europe (Shove and Southerton 2001). We know lessabout the possibly different stories about refrigerators. In this context, however, the importantissue is that the market for refrigerators and freezers is saturated. In Norway, 98% of thehouseholds had refrigerators and 92% had freezers at the time of the survey (1998). Purchaseof cold appliances in Norway, as in the rest of Western Europe, is either for new householdsor it is replacement purchase. In our material, 86% of the refrigerators and 82% of the freezerswere bought by their users as new products. The remaining was either bought second hand, orthey were gifts or inheritance.Table 1: Years since household’s acquisition of productRefrigerator FreezerThis year (1998) 3 41-5 years 44 366-10 years 27 26More than 11 years 26 34Total 100/ N = 973 100/ N =910The average (mean) “age” – that is the number of years the object as been used in thehousehold – varied between 7.9 years for refrigerators and 9.4 years for freezers, with themedian value being 6 and 8 years. Median value is higher than mean value because somehouseholds own products that are very old. As mentioned above, even at this point we seehow troublesome ‘empirical consumption’ might turn out to be for the optimistic visions ofthe efficiency revolution. A substantial number of households have to be persuaded to speedup their exchange rates for appliances; in this instance refrigerators and freezers, for the
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Social Constraints to Eco Efficiency: Refrigerators and freezers - SIFO

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