PT02 Environmental Economics
Exhibit Hall
8:00 AM - Tuesday
(PT09) Cold Water Cleaning Opportunities: Potential Cost and Energy Savings.
Sabaliunas, D1, 1 The Procter & Gamble Company, Cincinnati, OH, 45215
ABSTRACT- This paper deals with the potential energy and cost savings that could be achieved by consumers switching to lower water temperatures in their daily laundry washes. Specifically, conversion from hot to warm water temperature in the US amounts to energy savings of up to 2.4 kWh/wash, and conversion from warm to cold water results in energy savings of up to 2.95 kWh/wash (based on the energy consumption of conventional top-loading washing machines). In terms of costs, these savings approximate $0.22 and $0.27 per wash, respectively, which is similar to or even higher than the cost of detergent per wash. Obviously, these savings could only be realized if the actual consumer habit change with regard to the wash temperatures did indeed take place. This habit change can be driven by two key factors: (1) availability on the market of a detergent product that would achieve satisfactory cleaning in cold water; and (2) having a significant number of consumers satisfied by the performance of this detergent in cold water and driven by other related incentives (energy, cost saving) to the extent that they would willingly make this habit change on a long-term (sustainable) basis. Actual consumer habits and practices data were used to estimate the proportion of consumers that would move to lower wash temperatures if they had a product meeting the criteria above and the related energy and cost savings associated with this habit change. These potential savings were then benchmarked against various energy, environmental and sustainability criteria such as the total energy consumption, energy consumption in households, carbon dioxide equivalents, etc.
Key words: detergent, energy , sustainability