European Union’s energy labels: Their special importance for Argentine consumers

Energy efficiency labels

Energy labels can stand alone or complement energy programs (usually put in place by countries to improve their energy standards). This is all for the purpose of using your energy efficiently (not just saving energy). To this end, these labels also provide a common benchmark for energy efficiency.

Leer más: European Union’s energy labels: Their special importance for Argentine consumers

This benchmark makes it easy for utilities and government energy conservation agencies to incentivize consumers to buy more energy-efficient products. The new European Union energy efficiency labels: their particular meaning for Argentinian consumers EU energy labels are so-called “comparison labels”: they classify a product’s energy efficiency in relation to an absolute scale. An example of this type of label is the European Union energy label in force since 1995, then modified. In 2017, this label categorized the energy efficiency of products on a seven-level scale from A+++ to D, and, since 2017, on a scale from A to G.

Argentine consumers

In Argentina, Article 42 of the national constitution establishes the supremacy of consumer rights, which is fundamental when we talk about energy labels since their use is precisely designed to protect them.

Article 4 of Law 24.240, for its part, establishes the obligation of the supplier to communicate to the consumer in a specific, clear, and detailed manner everything related to the essential characteristics of the goods and services he offers and the conditions of their marketing. Information should always be free of charge for the consumer. It should be noted that the cost of labeling should not be passed on to the consumer. However, it is known that the prices of products and services that include labels (generally all types of eco-labels) are more expensive.

In turn, the National Civil and Commercial Code (CCyC) explicitly regulates the issue of sustainability by requiring that the rules governing consumer relations are to be applied and interpreted in accordance with the principle of consumer protection and the principle of access to sustainable consumption ( art. 1094 CCyC). Sustainable consumption, in turn, finds other standards that support it. So: (a) that the law does not protect the abusive exercise of individual rights when it can affect the environment and rights of collective incidence in general (Art. 14 CCyC), and (b) that the law sets limits to the exercise of individual rights to assets that must be compatible with: collective action rights and must not affect the functioning or sustainability of ecosystems, flora, fauna, biodiversity, water, cultural values, the landscape, etc., according to the criteria in the special law (art. 240 and 241) (Bianchi, 2017).

From the environmental point of view, energy labels serve to comply with Argentina’s general Laws on “minimum budgets”, such as the Law of minimum budgets for the protection of the environment (Law No. 25,675), the Law on Minimum Budgets for the Environmental Protection of Native Forests (Law No. 26,331), the Regulation and Promotion Law for the Sustainable Production and Use of Biofuel (Law No. 26,093), among others.

From the specific point of view of climate change, these labels comply with the objectives of Law n. 27.520 (Minimum budgets for adaptation and mitigation to global climate change), in particular, that referred to in art. 3 b) of the Standard: support and encouragement of the development of mitigation strategies and reduction of greenhouse gases in the country. In fact, energy labeling is an internationally proven policy to mitigate climate change.

Likewise, it allows for meeting the goals of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (approved by Law No. 24.295 of 1993) and the Paris Agreement (ratified by Law No. 27.270 of 2016).

Conclusions

From what has been said in this short work, we can draw the following conclusions:

1. Energy efficiency labels, as we have analyzed them in this work, can be considered as part of a larger genus made up of environmental labels and participate in the general characteristics of these labels.
2. In Argentine law, energy efficiency labels are based on Art. 42 of the Argentine National Constitution, the above-mentioned norms of the Civil and Commercial Code, Law 24.240, and the above-mentioned environmental legislation on climate change and sustainability.
3. In the aforementioned context, energy efficiency labels are to be regarded as part of the constitutional and legal protection of Argentine consumers.

You can read the original post in Spanish online at the following enlace al evento: Argentine Legal Information System (SAIJ)

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-Bianchi, L. V. (2017). El impacto del principio de acceso a un consumo sustentable del Código Civil y Comercial de la Nación en el derecho de los consumidores a la información ambiental de los productos y servicios. En Jornadas Nacionales de Derecho Civil – Universidad Nacional de La Plata.