Gas & Electric Cookers

This guide covers gas and electric cookers, including hobs, ovens and combined units. As household appliances go, cookers tend to have a long life, which makes choosing the right one important.

Alongside the activities of the companies behind the brands, the main considerations from an ethical consumer point of view are energy use and the resulting carbon emissions.

For the first time in this guide we recommend choosing electric rather than gas cookers for those living in the UK, a reflection of the country’s ongoing transition towards carbon-free electricity.

Finding an eco-friendly cooker

Cooking accounted on average for just 3% of the overall energy consumption of a UK household in 2019. 

Still, as it’s an appliance you’re likely to use every day for a decade or more, it’s worth taking the time to choose a cooker that will minimise both your costs and carbon footprint over the long term.

One of the first questions you might ask in your search for an eco-friendly cooker is whether it should be gas or electric. This hasn’t always been an easy question to answer when you try to balance energy efficiency, carbon emissions and running costs.

In the past Gas led to fewer CO2 emissions, but the evidence now shows that things have changed, and Electric cookers typically consume less energy than gas for the same amount of use. 

The table below presents the average energy consumption of gas and electric ovens and hobs (presented in Kilowatt Hours per use, week and year).

Table: Average kWh per use figures taken from Confused About Energy, with annual figures based on assumptions of 424 uses per year for hobs and 223 uses per year for ovens. Annual CO2e emissions are calculated using UK government conversion factors for natural gas and electricity use.

Running costs and carbon emissions for different types of cooker

Gas cookers are still somewhat cheaper to run due to the higher price per energy unit of electricity. And while electric cookers may use slightly less energy to cook with, this doesn’t take into account the fact that large amounts of energy are lost in the generation and transmission of electrical power.

Burning a fossil fuel to produce electricity, sending that electricity down a wire before converting it back to heat to cook your food is clearly less efficient than burning a fossil fuel directly under your pan. As a result of this, electric cookers have tended to lead to higher overall carbon emissions than gas. That is, until recently.

In the UK, where the electricity grid is undergoing a gradual process of decarbonisation, the balance is now shifting.

The right-hand columns of the table above compare the CO2e emissions associated with gas and electric cookers based on the UK energy grid in 2012, 2016 and 2020.

It shows that emissions from electricity use have roughly halved over eight years, while those from gas have remained the same, to the point where electric has begun to overtake gas as the low-emissions option.

Also the carbon impact of electrical appliances should continue to decline in line with the further planned decarbonisation of the national grid. Gas appliances however, which burn fossil fuels at the point of use, will always lead to emissions.

The Committee on Climate Change has recommended no new-build homes be connected to the gas grid after 2025, a measure that has already been implemented in the Netherlands.

All of which would suggest that, in the UK at least, electric cooking looks to be the better option for the future.
 

Cooker Manufacturers and Brands

The market for cookers is a confusing array of brands and models, with this guide listing over 40 different brand names.

However, many of these brands are ultimately owned by the same multinationals that dominate the rest of the home appliances market such as Whirlpool Corporation, AB Electrolux, Arçelik and Samsung.

Another notable player in the industry is the British manufacturer AGA-Rangemaster, who produce a multitude of brands at the premium end of the market including the iconic Aga, which we feature below and which has a very high energy use.

Robert Bosch GmbH was marked down in our scoretable for supplying parts to the automobile industry, while Koç Holding had interests in petroleum as well as automobiles. The latter is also a major supplier to the Turkish military via its subsidiary Otoka and is subject to a boycott call as a result.

Carbon management and reporting

Only two companies featured in this guide received our best rating for Carbon Management and Reporting: Panasonic and Ikea.

A majority of companies were considered to have insufficiently reported on scope 3 carbon emissions, despite the fact that the majority of emissions for the manufacture and supply of appliances is likely to occur in the use phase, which falls into scope 3.

Best: Panasonic Corporation, IKEA Ltd.
Middle: AB Electrolux, Whirlpool Corp, Arçelik, Sharp cookers, Dixons Carphone Plc, J Sainsbury plc, The Miele Group, Samsung Electronics Co Ltd.
Worst: Koç Holding, Haier Group, Hisense Import and Export Co, Amica SA, John Lewis Partnership plc, Glen Dimplex Group, Matchstick Men Group Limited, Montpellier Domestic Appliances Ltd, Robert Bosch GmbH (automobile), Siemens, Smeg SpA, De’Longhi SpA, The Middleby Corporation.

Energy efficiency labels on cookers

Unlike most other household appliances, cookers and ovens are not yet subject to the new improved EU (and UK equivalent) energy labelling system. This means that until the next round of updates, cooking appliances are still labelled according to the old system, which ranges from A+++ to D.

Manufacturers are required to include energy labels for conventional gas and electric ovens, whether they are built-in ovens or part of a free-standing cooker. Hobs and grills are not covered by the labelling system, and neither are many ‘non-conventional’ types of oven (such as ovens with built-in microwaves, steam-only ovens and more). Labels must be provided for each conventional oven ‘cavity’, meaning that units with multiple ovens may come with two or more different energy labels.

While the stated maximum energy rating for ovens is A+++, our research did not find a single product on the market using the highest rating.

Only three brands were found to offer products featuring a second-best A++ on specific models: AEG, Grundig and Hoover. As these models were exceptional in achieving an A++ rating, they received a product sustainability mark on our score table. The vast majority of products available were rated A or A+, with B being the lowest rating we found on any current models.

Energy use of self-cleaning ovens

A significant number of ovens now feature pyrolytic self-cleaning, which works by heating to extreme temperatures of over 400ºC. This means that all food deposits are turned into ash for you to simply sweep away once the oven is cool.

Heating to such high temperatures for several hours at a time is clearly an energy-intensive process (although definitive figures were hard to find, one test found that the self-cleaning cycle consumed 8 kWh, which would be equivalent to around two weeks of normal use).

Some proponents of self-cleaning ovens argue that the quality of insulation needed to contain such high temperatures mitigates the extra energy used, although no statistics were found to support these claims. However, a more obvious advantage of self-cleaning ovens from an environmental point-of-view is that they may enable you to avoid highly toxic oven cleaners.

Avoiding buying new

Given the lack of high-scoring brands on our list, not to mention the high cost of new cooking appliances, you may well be inclined to avoid buying new.

Buying a used cooker

The good news is that, with cookers among the longest lasting of household appliances, it shouldn’t be too hard to find a second hand unit with plenty of life left in it and that could save you a considerable amount of money. What is more, supply of many household appliances has been disrupted by Covid-19, so if you need a cooker urgently, second-hand may be a better way to go.

For reliability, it’s better to buy from a local appliance repair centre than from an individual on an online marketplace like eBay. That way it should come fully tested, and lots of dealers also provide a delivery and fitting service.

Repairing what you have

Unlike with many other household appliances, common faults with cookers, such as failing elements in electric ovens, are often practical and economical to repair, so it’s worth calling a repair specialist about a faulty cooker before you think of chucking it out for a new one.

The UK Whitegoods website at is a useful resource for repairs advice and spare parts for cookers and other appliances.