PSIB

Increasingly, there is a demand to assess and measure the environmental performance of products sold in the UK. Published Performance Standards offer benchmarks with which to compare the environmental performance of a range of products and help inform the decision making process of policy makers, manufacturers and consumers when promoting, manufacturing or purchasing products.

The Performance Standards Information Base has been drawn up by Defras Market Transformation Programme (MTP) to provide information on:

Benchmarks for the environmental performance of household appliances and traded goods.

It also identifies:

Existing and proposed test methodologies used to determine a products environmental performance.

The information contained in this information base can be accessed in the following ways:

• Content Overview: lists all products for which there are Performance Standards and Test Methodologies available in the information base. Products can be viewed in alphabetical order.
  
• Performance Standards by Product: provides a detailed description of all performance standards related to a particular product. This includes projected performance levels for future years and links to related test methodologies. (The test methodologies define how to go about measuring that aspect of the products environmental performance).
  
• Test Methodologies: lists all test methodologies related to a particular sector or product. This includes a description of each test methodology.

For a limited range of products the information base also indicates the operational cost savings in per year achievable by choosing class leader or best practice over minimum standard products.