Eco-conscious motorists in California will find that life is a little easier this year after new green car stickers were implemented on new vehicles making environmental choices easier to make and more transparent.

The stickers were introduced on January 1 and provide information on a car’s environmental impact. The sticker will apply to all 2009 models onwards – not to any year end closeouts that may attract interest.

The so-called ‘environmental performance label’ provides two scores ranging from 1-10 – one a smog score, the other a global warming score.

The smog score outlines each vehicle’s pollutant levels of non-methane organic gases and oxides of nitrogen relative to other vehicles from the same model year. The average score is five, with 10 indicating the most environmentally friendly vehicles, such as those with zero emissions.

The Global Warming score meanwhile is based on the sum of a vehicle’s greenhouse gas emissions which are identified as the CO2-equivalent value. These include carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (NO2), and hydroflurocarbons (HFCs) from air conditioner refrigerant. Again, the scores are ranked from 1-10, 10 indicating the most environmentally friendly vehicles.

Speculation has mounted that the implementation of the environmental performance stickers may be followed by taxation based on the emissions of the vehicle driven, much like we see here in the UK and also in Finland.

What do you make of the green car sticker idea? Would you like to see something similar implemented where you live? Leave a comment with your thoughts.