Collaboration, Not Collusion: Safeguarding the Public Interest in Standardisation

Consumers have become more conscious of energy efficiency and demand environmentally friendly products as one of the ways to reduce their electricity bills. The European Union energy label informs consumers at the point of sale about the energy efficiency and electricity consumption of various electric goods, such as Televisions. The label should enable consumers to purchase energy-efficient products, thereby making a significant contribution to the reduction of overall energy consumption. The information provided on the label, such as the energy efficiency rating, are usually evaluated based on inspection and testing procedures available in technical standards. These standards are increasingly set by international standards setting bodies, which have been displayed by research as being dominated by the industry. The international TV standard, in its different versions, was criticized repeatedly for its inadequacy to safeguard certain stakeholders’ interests. Re-testing and market surveillances reports suggest that this was partly due to a failure in the testing procedure to imitate real life use conditions. TVs end up consuming more energy than the amount measured in the testing environment. I hypothesis that this failure was partly due to an insufficient inclusion of inputs/preferences from end users and environmental agencies. To the extent that these stakeholders are a source of important and unique information about the aftermath of implementing a standard, the effectiveness of their participation in international standards’ setting is at stake. This paper contributes to our understanding of how certain actors’ preferences in the international standards’ setting get marginalized, and the process result in a standard that doesn’t safeguard their interests. This will be done by examining the participation of non-commercial stakeholders against normative democratic criteria which essentially include assessing how widespread and effectives their participation was. The paper will also contribute to our understanding of the barriers preventing these stakeholders from including their preferences, and provide recommendations on how this can be improved. For an environmental impact perspective, it will further explain why overall energy demand is increasing despite the recent enhancement in energy efficiency for TVs. The study will focus primarily on the participation of consumer associations and environmental agencies. Since the universe of private standards is vast, the research is narrowed to look specifically at the standard for TVs, IEC 62087, as a case study.