Have you heard of Energy Star? This is a program created by the U.S Department of Energy and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency way back in 1992 with the goal of saving consumers money on energy consumption and reducing polluting emissions to the atmosphere. Energy Star can be considered as an independent third party evaluator of appliances.

In this program manufacturers voluntarily label their products with their estimated energy usage along with the approximate cost to run the amount of energy the products are going to consume. When manufacturers submit their products for Energy Star testing, these information will be available for consumers, so they will be able to compare the amount of power consumption between different product models. Today, this program has been adopted by other countries such as Australia, Canada and the European Union.

In the U.S alone, consumers have saved $18 billion in energy costs and decreased greenhouse gases released to the atmosphere in the worth of 33 million car emissions in 2010.

To know which appliances are Energy Star tested look for a label that says “EnergyGuide”. At the top of this label you’ll find a product description which includes the manufacturer, model and the size of the product and the key features of the product you are checking out as well as the other models that fall in the same cost range.

In the middle of the Label, you’ll find the Estimated Yearly Operating Cost which is a scale that shows the cost range of similar products and where in the scale the product that you are looking at falls.

At the bottom, you’ll see the Estimated Yearly Electricity Use. It will show you how much electricity in the value of Kwh the appliance you’re looking at will consume in one year of typical usage.

Now that you know what Energy Star is about, always look for the logo when you purchase appliances so that you will be sure that the products you’re buying use less energy and better for the environment than the others.