EU policy & strategies Flashcards
European strategies related to
ecodesign
2003 - Integrated Product Policy (IPP) 2008 - Action Plan for Sustainable Consumption & Production 2011 - Eco Innovation Action Plan 2015 - Circular Economy Action Plan 2019 - Green Deal 2020 - New Circular Economy Action Plan
Integrated Product Policy (IPP) I
• Integrated Product Policy (IPP) is a key strategy for EU environmental policy:
•„Integrated Product Policy (IPP) seeks to support sustainable development by
reducing the negative environmental impacts of products throughout their
life cycle from cradle to grave.“
–> first policy where the life cycle of a product has been acknoledged
• Integrated concerning full life cycle and actors involved: Designers, Industry, Marketing, Retailers, Consumers
• IPP attempts to stimulate each life cycle phase and each actors to improve their environmental performance
• IPP is based on a variety of tools both voluntary and mandatory –> divided into three main groups, examples: economic and legal framework, Taves and subsidies, life cycle information, Environmental management system (ESM) or consumer Information
• IPP focuses on particularly relevant products, e.g. mobile phones: pilot project: pop up message when the battery is fully charged
Action Plan for
Sustainable
Consumption
& Production
2008
• Integrated approach to support sustainable consumption and production and to promote sustainable industrial policy in the EU and internationally
• The core of the Action Plan is a dynamic framework to improve the energy and environmental performance of products and foster their uptake by
consumers by:
– Setting ambitious standards throughout the EU internal market
– Ensuring that products are improved using a systematic approach to incentives
and procurement
– Reinforcing information to consumers through a more coherent and simplified
labelling framework, so that demand can underpin this policy
• The approach will address products that have significant potential for
reducing environmental impacts.
(quite similar to IPP, same for Eco innovation Action Plan and Circular Economy Action Plan, every 4-5 years the EU updates their core environmental policies –> include the core, add certain things, modifying it to according to whats new, but no fundamental differences)
Action plan for sustainable consumption, production
and industry - List of actions
List of actions that have been derived from the action plan:
• Ecodesign requirements for more products;
• Reinforced energy and environmental labelling;
• Incentives for environmentally high performing products;
• Green public procurement practices;
• Consistent product data and methodologies;
• Work with retailers and consumers;
• resource efficiency, eco innovation and enhancing the environmental potential of industry;
• Promoting sustainable production and consumption internationally
Green Deal
2019
• An integral part of this Commission’s strategy to implement the United
Nation’s 2030 Agenda and the sustainable development goals
• A new growth strategy that aims to transform the EU into a fair and prosperous society , with a modern, resource efficient and competitive economy
• Opportunity to improve the health and well being of the people by transforming the economic model
• Is increasing the EU‘s Climate ambitions for 2030 and 2050
European Green Deal - Objectives
- Objectives:
1. Climate neutrality by 2050
2. protect human health, animals and plants by cutting pollution
3. help companies become world leaders in clean products&technologies
4. help ensure a just and inclusive transition –> leave no one behind economically
• Concerning climate change:
– The EU is to become climate neutral by 2050
• All greenhouse gases are avoided or stored, whether in forests or underground
• The goal of climate neutrality is to be anchored in a law by March 2020.
– The EU is to reduce its greenhouse gases by 50 55 percent below 1990 levels by 2030
• So far, a reduction of only 40 percent has been planned
Investment plan
of the European Green Deal
Three main objectives 1) increase funding through the EU budget and associated instruments , in particular InvestEU 2) create an enabling framework for private investors and the public sector to facilitate sustainable investments 3) provide support to public administrations and project promoters in identifying , structuring and executing sustainable projects
New Circular Economy Action Plan - Goals
2020
- -> one measures of the element “Transition to a circular economy” of EU green deal
- presents new intiatives along the entire life cycle of products
- ambition to make sustainable products that last and to enable our citizens to take full part in circular economy&benefit from positve change
Goals:
• Make sustainable products the norm in the EU
• Empower consumers and public buyers
• Focus on the sectors that use most resources and where the potential for circularity is high
• Ensure less waste
• Make circularity work for people, regions and cities
• Lead global efforts on circular economy
New Sustainable Product Policy
Legeslative Framework I
–> Measures to reach the goals of the New Circular Economy Action Plan
Three main steps:
1) Sustainable product design
2) Empowering consumers and public buyers
3) Circularity in production process
1) Sustainable product design by (–> Ecodesign):
– Improving product durability , reusability , upgradability and reparability , addressing the presence of hazardous chemicals in products and increasing their energy and resource efficiency
– Increasing recycled content in products
– Enabling remanufacturing and high quality recycling
– Reducing carbon and environmental footprints
– Aim restricting single use and countering premature obsolescence
– Introducing a ban on the destruction of unsold durable goods
– Incentivising product as a service or other models where producers keep the ownership of the
product or the responsibility for its performance throughout its lifecycle
– Mobilising the potential of digitalisation of product information, including solutions such as
digital passports, tagging and watermarks
– Rewarding products based on their different sustainability performance , including by linking
high performance levels to incentives
New Sustainable Product Policy
Legeslative Framework II
2) Empowering consumers and public buyers, e.g.:
– Law to ensure that consumers receive trustworthy and relevant information on products at the point of sale , including on their lifespan and on the availability of
repair services, spare parts and repair manuals
– Strengthening consumer protection against green washing and premature
obsolescence, setting minimum requirements for sustainability labels/logos and for
information tools.
– Establishing a new ‘right to repair’ and consider new horizontal material rights
for consumers
– Proposing a law that companies substantiate their environmental claims using Product and Organisation Environmental Footprint methods
New Sustainable Product Policy
Legeslative Framework III
3) Circularity in production processes, e.g.:
– Assessing options for further promoting circularity in industrial processes in the
context of the review of the Industrial Emissions Directive
– Facilitating industrial symbiosis by developing an industry led reporting and
certification system, and enabling the implementation of industrial symbiosis
– Supporting the sustainable and circular bio based sector through the
implementation of the Bioeconomy Action Plan
– Promoting the use of digital technologies for tracking, tracing and mapping of
resources
– Promoting the uptake of green technologies through a system of solid verification
by registering the EU Environmental Technology Verification scheme as an EU
certification mark
Key Actions
• Less waste, more value
– Enhanced waste policy in support of waste prevention and circularity
– Enhancing circularity in a toxic free environment
– Creating a well functioning EU market for secondary raw materials
– Addressing waste exports from the EU
• Making the circular economy work for people, regions and cities
• Crosscutting actions
– Circularity as a prerequisite for climate neutrality
– Getting the economics right
– Driving the transition through research, innovation and digitalisation
• Leading efforts at global level
• Monitoring the progress
Circular
Economy
• Closing the loop
- An EU action plan for the Circular Economy
• In 2014 the Commission decided to withdraw its legislative proposal
on waste
• But not just waste reduction targets
• Cover the full economic cycle,
drawing on the expertise of all
the Commission’s services
– Reinvent our economy, making it
more sustainable and competitive by closing the life cycle of products and materials
– Measures to cut resource use, reduce waste and boost recycling
– Benefits and more resilience for European businesses, industries, and citizens
Three main pillas of the action plan
Sustainable Consumption and Production (SCP)
Sustainble Industrial Policy (SIP)
Consumption (Sustainable Behaviours):
- Environmental product labels
- Green Public Procurement (GPP)
Production (Efficient Processes):
- Revised EMAS
- ETAP
Products (Improved Performance):
- IPP
- Revised Eco-design Directive
- -> Revisions of guidelines
==> This overaching political strategy has lead to concrete release of legislation which adress the aspects
