Samsung has announced a significant milestone: its washing machine's AI Energy Mode has been officially verified by Carbon Trust, making it the world's first product to receive carbon reduction certification based on the DUCD standard.
This not only proves that Samsung's AI power saving is not just a slogan, but also establishes a new industry standard for measuring carbon emissions of connected home appliances during the usage phase.
What is DUCD? It's not just about production, but also about how you use it.
In the past, when we talked about carbon footprint, we mostly focused on carbon emissions during the product manufacturing or transportation process. But for plug-in home appliances, the carbon emissions generated during "actual use" after consumers buy them are actually the bulk of the problem.
DUCD (Decarbonizing the Use-Phase of Connected Devices) is an initiative driven by Carbon Trust in collaboration with businesses and government agencies to "standardize" the energy consumption and carbon reduction benefits of connected devices during their use. Samsung joined the initiative as a secretariat member in September 2022 and helped release globally unified measurement standards in November 2024.
Simply put, DUCD is a meter used to measure whether smart home appliances are actually helping you save electricity.
The data speaks for itself: The electricity saved in a year is enough for 16 households to use for a day.
According to a third-party verification report by Carbon Trust Assurance, pilot evaluations of Samsung's global washing machine product line showed that during the period from July 2024 to June 2025:
• Total energy consumption:The total energy consumption using the SmartThings platform is 12.28 GWh.
• AI energy-saving effect:After enabling AI Energy Mode, it was verified that a total of 5.02 GWh of power consumption was saved.
• Carbon reduction:This is equivalent to a reduction of 2084 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO2e) in emissions.
Samsung likened the 5.02 GWh of electricity saved to roughly enough for 169,000 households to use for a full day, based on the average daily electricity consumption of an American household.
Jeong Seung Moon, head of the R&D team at Samsung's Digital Home Appliances Business Unit, said that AI Energy Mode is a key example of Samsung incorporating environmental factors into product design. In the future, they will continue to optimize products and services to make users feel the benefits more in actual use.
Energy conservation becomes the new battleground in the prelude to CES 2026.
The timing of this verification announcement at the end of the year is clearly a warm-up for CES 2026 in Las Vegas. Samsung has announced that it will further showcase its energy-saving solutions and innovative products at CES.
Analysis Perspective: From "Creating Green" to "Using Green"
In my opinion, Samsung's acquisition of DUCD verification this time is of landmark significance. In the past, home appliance manufacturers mostly emphasized hardware specifications such as "inverter" and "level 1 energy efficiency". However, with the networking of home appliances, optimizing the operation mode through AI algorithms (such as washing machines automatically adjusting water volume and speed according to load, or refrigerators automatically adjusting the compressor) has become a new trend in software-defined energy saving.
Through third-party standards like DUCD, manufacturers' claims of "AI-powered energy saving" are no longer just marketing terms, but quantifiable and verifiable data. This is good news for companies committed to ESG and for savvy consumers. The future battleground for smart home appliances will clearly not be about whose AI algorithm is smarter, but about whose AI is better at saving money for the planet (and your wallet).
