Evaluating today’s certification programs
BY JACKI SWIERNIK, Intertek
The Energy Policy and Conservation Act of 1975 and its subsequent amendments established minimum efficiency standards for lighting products.
These minimum efficiency standards, as well as recently-proposed penalties (including product holds, recalls, and fines) that the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) have threatened to incur in the event of a manufacturer’s non-compliance (as publicized in the DOE’s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, issued on March 26th, 2012) were discussed at length in Intertek’s August 2012 white paper entitled, “Understanding the DOE Announcement of Compliance and Enforcement: The Definitive Q&A Guide for Lighting Products”.
While the DOE’s mandatory energy efficiency standards and recently-heightened surveillance efforts are designed to ensure manufacturers’ compliance with minimum energy efficiency requirements, they do not account for all of the “green” lighting certification programs and...
