‘A new generation of standards fit for the market of the future will be required’

The Sustainable Products Initiative, foreseen for December, could change our consumption patterns forever by saying goodbye to short-lived, single use products and making reuse and repair the norm.

On 17 June 2021, ECOS held its online conference Making Sustainable Products the Norm, where high-level speakers gave the first hints of what the initiative could look like. ‘As up to 80% of our products’ environmental impact is determined by design, that is where we want to concentrate much of our attention’, explained Commissioner Sinkevičius in his opening speech.

Click Watch the full video of the conference here!

The Commission’s goal is that of ‘an ambitious tool that makes a difference’, he said, explaining that the Commission wants to spur a dramatic increase in the potential for reuse, repair and recycling and a step change in the availability of product information.

‘Standards will play a key role’, he warned. ‘Some of the existing standards will need to be adapted but a new generation of standards fit for the market of the future will also be required. Timely delivery will be very important’.

The conference continued with a panel debate with high-level representatives from UNCTAD, the Global Electronics Council, the ISEAL Alliance, the Head of Commission’s sustainable products initiative unit from DG Environment, and ECOS. Speakers focused on the need for an inclusive approach in developing standards and laws, and the complementarity of voluntary standards and mandatory regulation in making sustainable products widespread.

Voluntary standards work best with robust mandatory legislation

Matjaž Malgaj, head of unit at DG Environment at the European Commission opened the panel debate acknowledging the ‘important role of making sustainable products the norm in addressing our key environmental challenges’. For that, while ‘a lot has been done on the voluntary side’, to fill the gap ‘we need more regulation’.

More regulation will not mean the end of standards, he explained, but a combination of both.  In short, ‘raise the bar for everybody while benefitting from the positive impacts [of voluntary standards]’.

Justin Wilkes, our executive director, praised the role of current ecodesign rules in barring unsustainable products from the market. ‘The market can be a very powerful force for good, if it is designed well and regulated well’, he said. ‘[Ecodesign] is a proven tool in that respect’.

While setting mandatory rules, ecodesign also ‘leaves a lot of valuable space for voluntary sustainability initiatives to continue leading that change’, he said. ‘That is absolutely vital. Voluntary sustainability standards are constantly raising the bar’.

Mr Wilkes called for mandatory rules to dominate the upcoming Sustainable Products Initiative. Standards will be ‘an absolutely critical part of the mix’ but legislation is ‘key’, he said.  The SPI should focus on ecodesign, setting mandatory minimum performance requirements to enter the market. Product labelling, while it has a role in pulling up the market, ‘cannot be seen as the primary driver’.

On this note, Mr Wilkes called on the Commission to stop relying on industry’s self-regulatory voluntary agreements – such as the ones that currently in place for games consoles and printers – because of their poor results. ‘I am much more comfortable with voluntary agreements being developed by the pioneers of the voluntary sustainability standards than by the laggards in the markets’, he said.

European Commission’s Mr Malgaj admitted that ‘voluntary agreements have not worked as well as they should’. He said Commission officials would be ‘conscious of that’ when defining their new approach to ecodesign as part of the Sustainable Products Initiative. ‘The last thing we want is to have a black hole’, he concluded.

Karin Kreider, executive director of ISEAL Alliance, a global organisation developing collaborative sustainable solutions, agreed that standards and laws work best when they go hand-in-hand: ‘The idea is having the regulatory approach and the voluntary approach as complementary and adding value to each other’.

Ms Kreider defended the advantages of voluntary agreements, in combination with laws, as they help innovation and adaptation to challenges. ‘[Voluntary approaches] may be able to respond more quickly than regulatory frameworks’.

Regarding the SPI, Ms Kreider thought that new rules in Europe could create a spillover effect ‘and set an example for the rest of the world’. ‘The EU is taking the lead now and this will provide a picture of how it can be done’, she asserted.

Nancy Gillis, Chief Executive Officer at the Global Electronics Council, which brings together some of the biggest ICT global businesses and organisations seeking to enable digital sustainability, put forward the benefits of ecolabels to draw manufacturers into more sustainable practices. Labels ‘are a way to bring together requirements that your products and your organisation need to meet, that are transparent and hopefully increasingly consistent’, she said.

Ecolabels do need regulation as the ‘base bar’, she explained. Voluntary labels support innovation through increasingly ambitious criteria, including all the stages of product lifecycles. ‘If industry is willing to get the carrot they need to work hard to get it’, she concluded.

All voices need to be heard for standards to work

For impact ‘at global scale’, inclusiveness is ‘key’, Ms Gillis continued. Certifications should ‘include the voices of non-profit, academics, and policymakers… and give them equitable weight’, while making sure that SME perspective is included so that also smaller companies can be part of a more sustainable economy.

The need for public authorities to help smaller producers, especially in developing countries, to comply with sustainability requirements and take their voices into account was the main point of Isabelle Durant, acting secretary general at the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).  ‘For a small producer, the question of a standard or a non-tariff measure is a forest of issues’ and certifications can be ‘very expensive’, she said.

Ms Durant gave the example of a small producer of bio-food complements located in Peru that she visited, who could not comply with the requirements set in European legislation for novel food. ‘Sometimes something is easy to realise in a European country but when you are in the mountains of Peru, it is impossible’.

Rules should take into account local conditions in developing countries, so that manufacturers there can include ‘the sustainable angle’ in their production, she explained. The EU should make sure that rules for sustainability do not come across as protectionism in other parts of the world. ‘There is a lot of distrust from developing countries’, she warned. ‘We have to break that because it is not true’.

Mr Wilkes also called for inclusiveness in the development of standards for rules to work. ‘Inclusiveness is not a nice-to-have. It should be at the heart of the standardisation system’, he said.

Mr Wilkes went on to explain that, currently, standardisation processes are dominated by industry, which ‘is not necessarily a bad thing’ as companies hold lots of expertise regarding products. However, other voices should be given a seat at the table too, including gender perspectives, consumers, environmental, and SMEs, he said. ‘These voices need to be facilitated’, including the availability of financial support for effective participation.

At the conference, ECOS launched its paper International standardisation that works for the environment – Making change happen, calling for inclusiveness in the standardisation system to achieve sustainable products for all.

Watch the full conference below!