According to a recent study by a high street watchdog, shops and manufacturers are failing to inform customers about the electrical products they buy.
The National Consumer Council has accused the likes of Comet, Currys and John Lewis of keeping their customers “in the dark” regarding the energy efficiency of the products they sell, meaning customers are none the wiser about the potential emissions from televisions, DVDs, laptops, MP3 players and game consoles.
Apparently only one out of 350 items the company checked in 10 different stores carried an energy label; now the NCC is calling on the government to make it mandatory that all electrical goods carry a sticker with a colour coding scheme so the consumer can decide which equipment best to buy. They also believe the ‘greenest’ goods should be subsidised so they can be afforded by the poorest families.
Larry Whitty, chairman of the NCC, said: “You would not expect to buy a car without knowing how much petrol it consumes, yet shoppers buying a television will have little idea how energy efficient it really is.”
In response to the survey a spokesman for DSG International, owners of PC World and Currys, said they were looking at introducing an energy labelling scheme, while a spokesman for Tesco said: “It’s an issue we take very seriously and we are doing lots of research into this area.”
