Sustainability is a guiding principle for a responsible, future‐oriented 21st century lifestyle and this already begins in private households with the daily household tasks. Approximately 25% of an average household's electricity consumption is required to do the laundry and dishwashing – 5% alone is for washing clothes with a corresponding energy consumption of 6 billion kilowatt hours. In addition, 600 000 tonnes of detergent and 330 million cubic metres of water are used for textile care in Germany. These figures provide the rationale for the scientific study of current practices of using washing machines and for a resulting estimate of the latent energy‐saving potential in German households. In the context of the in‐home study presented here, 236 private households throughout Germany were studied with respect to their washing practices and existing knowledge about topics on the sustainable, energy‐saving use of their washing machines. Overall, across all households 2867 wash cycles were individually recorded and subsequently analysed over a 4‐week period. The results of this study show that washing machines tend to be underloaded, and therefore maximum loading of the machines could lead to a reduction of wash cycles per household. With respect to detergent dosage, it was determined that the consumer does not adjust the dosage to the textile type, load size, soil level and/or water hardness, and this can lead to under‐ or overdosing depending on prevailing conditions. Finally, the selection of the wash temperature showed a 90°C/95°C programme was only chosen in 2.3% of all recorded wash cycles, however, every fourth cycle was completed at 60°C. Therefore, adjusting the load size and detergent dosage as well as selecting the right wash temperature are key themes to be taken into account in future consumer communication about energy‐saving households.

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The continuing rise of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is leading to catastrophic damage in many parts of the world over the coming decades unless GHG emissions can be controlled quickly. The objective of reducing GHG emissions can only be accomplished when all the sectors contributing to GHG emission act responsibly. The contribution of the household to GHG emission was 19.6% in the European Union (EU) in 2013. The energy consumption for laundry washing in the EU, estimated at 24.2 TWh/year, is a substantial share of household energy use. As the use phase of the washing machine is the dominant stage where the environmental impact occurs, this paper addresses some of the EU consumers' washing and drying behaviour in the laundry process. Information on consumers' behaviour regarding the laundry process was collected by a semirepresentative survey in eleven EU countries in 2015, including more than 5,000 participants. The main outcome of the study is that consumers' behaviour regarding the laundry process differs substantially between the EU countries. Moreover, socio-demographic characteristics of households affect the overall sustainability profile of the laundry process. K E Y W O R D S detergent, drying, energy consumption, fabric enhancer, ironing, loading, washing 1 | I NTR OD U CTI ON The residential sector is the second largest electricity consumption sector after the industry sector in Europe, having a contribution of 29.71% of total electricity used. Within the residential sector, the share of electricity consumption in heating systems, cold appliances, lighting are 19.1%, 14.5% and 10%, respectively. This contribution in other segments including entertainments, office equipment, dishwashers, ventilation and air conditions, coffee machines, electric ovens and vacuum cleaners is around 35%. Furthermore, 7.2% of electricity is consumed for washing and drying (Bertoldi, Hirl, & Labanca, 2012). The energy consumption for laundry washing in Europe was estimated to be 24.2 TWh/year (Pakula & Stamminger, 2010). This shows the importance of washing and drying in the total electricity consumption. The life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology can be used to determine the relative impact that washing machines and washing processes have on the environment. This methodology is known as a way to assess product sustainability that examines and evaluates the environmental performance of all different stages that can be identified during the life cycle of a product, starting from material acquisition until the end-of-life processes (Bauman & Tillman, 2004). Based on the study which was carried out by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH, 2011), the lifestyle and washing habits of the consumers are the major factors in determining the machine's ecological impact. The results of the life cycle assessment indicate that the use phase of the washing machine is the dominant stage where the environmental impact occurs. Washing clothes is one part of the laundry process. Resources used in laundry processes in pr...

Washing machines in Europe have to comply with regulations fixed in the Energy Label and Ecodesign legislation. They require declaration of the specific consumption and performance values which are deduced as average values from tests on three different treatments. Detailed data about the individual tests are normally not available to the public but just kept in the technical documentation of the manufacturer. Within the ATLETE II project 62 washing machines were measured to verify their compliance with the declared value. As this was an EU funded project all data are now also publicly available. This set of detailed measured data was used first to get a deeper inside into the performances and consumption values of the specific parameters and second to see how different the approaches are between manufacturers to achieve the same or similar declaration values. Additionally it could be shown that there are significant differences between those programmes used for the declaration and those offered as “normal” programmes to the consumer.

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