Whirlpool has announced that nine of its cooking appliances are among the industry’s first certified under the Association for Home Appliance Manufacturers (AHAM) Sustainability Standard for Cooking Products — the first voluntary sustainability standard for household cooking products, developed by AHAM, UL Environment and the Canadian Standards Association (CSA) Group.
The Sustainability Standard for household cooking appliances include convection, non-convection and steam products such as ranges, built-in cooktops and ovens. This new standard is the fourth 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 household cooking appliances in five key areas: materials, manufacturing and operations, energy consumption during use, end-of-life and innovation.
"Increased energy efficiency has been an important focus at Whirlpool Corporation for more than 40 years," said Maureen Sertich, North America sustainability lead. "This latest certification is exciting because it means consumers can find laundry, refrigeration and now cooking home appliances that meet the AHAM Sustainability Standards and can have efficient appliances in their home.”
AHAM, CSA Group and UL Environment say this standard is meant to serve as an objective and practical measurement tool to assist cooking appliance manufacturers in evaluating the environmental sustainability of home appliances. Other major appliance standards are under development and are expected to be published later in 2015.
In 2013, LG Electronics’ advanced front-load clothes washers became the first in the world to meet the requirements of the CSA sustainability verification service, which takes a broad, multi-attribute and holistic approach to assessing the environmental impacts of residential clothes washers. The Sustainability Standard for Household Clothes Washers takes a multi-attribute approach developed using life-cycle assessment information along with other key factors influencing product environmental performance such as materials, manufacturing and operations, energy and water consumption during use, innovation, use of consumables and end-of-life management.
In other Whirlpool news, last month the company helped attendees of the 2015 Consumer Electronics Show imagine the future of a fully connected home ecosystem— from smart products such as the first connected, donation-enabled laundry pair, to a socially networked kitchen environment concept with smarter surfaces.