Over 90 organizations to Best Buy: Do more to educate your customers about the health risks of gas stoves

This week, U.S. PIRG sent a letter to Best Buy CEO Corie Barry calling on them to educate consumers on the health risks of gas stoves. 92 other organizations joined our call. 

Gas stoves emit unsafe pollutants inside of enclosed household spaces, posing a significant health threat, particularly to young children who can develop asthma due to exposure. Unfortunately, many Americans don’t know about these well documented health risks. Worse, when consumers go shopping at major retailers, they are not getting good information from sales associates. In a recent report, we found that 76% of store associates at major appliance retailers said that gas stoves were perfectly safe or that they were not aware of health issues with gas stove emissions. 

Best Buy is one of the country’s largest appliance retailers with over 1,000 store locations nationwide. Their mission is to enrich lives through technology, and is a company that emphasizes consumer education. Best Buy has already made big climate commitments, like setting a goal of helping its customers reduce their own carbon emissions by 20% by 2030. Our letter encourages Best Buy to follow through on their mission.

In our letter, we called on Best Buy to create a point of sale educational program that provides information on the pollutants emitted by gas stoves and the health risks they pose, and the clean air benefits of switching to electric or induction. We also asked Best Buy to educate their sales force to in turn educate customers about their choices related to indoor air quality and cooking. Read the full letter here.