Last month, I wrote about a program in California where ENERGY STAR joined forces with PG&E to offer incentives to business to promote energy-efficient TVs and computer monitors. Well, it looks like May was a banner month for selling energy-efficient products for, also in May, a new program launched in Japan that has led to greatly increased appliance sales.
Funded by a 3 billion dollar subsidy from the Japanese government, the eco-point system gives consumers points good toward future purchases and trade-ins of older products. The program was launched on May 15th and is already proving to be a success. According to The Japan Times, sales of flat panel television sets for the month rose 60% and refrigerator sales hit 120% over last year.
Along with the incentive to customers, there has been a continued push in Japan to produce more green goods. In addition to Japan’s the much admired Top Runner program that uses a best practices approach to encourage manufacturers to produce energy-efficient products, there is also the Energy Saving Labeling Program that informs consumers of a product’s annual power consumption and whether the product meets the set energy conservation standard. The labeling program now includes 13 product categories.
For further information see:
· Japan Times: Eco-points prove boon for electronics sales
· Japan Daily Tech: Japan Offers Incentives to Purchase Green Products
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