Through the Rethink Plastic Alliance campaign, efforts have been made to secure reduction targets for plastic production and usage in the upcoming Plastics Strategy. A recently leaked internal draft of the highly anticipated strategy showed a certain number of measures covering recycling. However, the overall prevention of creating waste, our core goal, was only targeted […]

ECOS has joined the European Parliament and the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) in calling on the European Commission to establish the long-awaited inter-institutional dialogue on standardisation. The dialogue will bring together the European Commission, Parliament, and Council, the EESC, the Committee of the Regions, together with the European standardisation organisations, and the Annex III […]

The implementation of the Ecodesign & Energy Labelling policies during the Commission President Juncker until now can be summarised by ‘continuous delays and a historically low number of adopted measures’. Measures on big savers such as commercial refrigeration, electric motors, industrial fans, have been stalled for several years without reason. The latest news is that […]

Greg Archer, the Clean Vehicles Director of Transport & Environment has been elected as the new ECOS President. Greg has been on the Committee for over three years, and has been the Vice-President since 2016. Our former president Pieter de Pous, leaves us and his position as Policy Director at the European Environmental Bureau (EEB) […]

The annual CEN-ECOS training for environmental experts on standardisation gathered more than 20 ECOS members and experts. Participants learned the basics of standardisation, including what standards are, their evolution over time, and how they are structured and developed. These procedural aspects were complemented by an interactive session on how to effectively contribute to standards making. […]

ECOS welcomes the publication of the Annual Union Work Programme for European standardisation for 2018 (AUWP) which acknowledges that “many challenges remain” concerning participation of societal stakeholders such as ECOS. The AUWP rightly points out that efforts should be maintained to address these challenges with a particular focus at international level with ISO and the […]

ECOS and the European Commission are about to confirm a new partnership agreement for the year 2018. Under this agreement, ECOS will work to represent the environmental interests are represented in standardisation work at European and international level.

The ETSI ‘3SI programme’ sets out to improve societal interests in their work. In November, the ETSI board appointed John Ketchell, of consumer organisation ANEC, to be the programmes first advocate. ECOS supports John’s candidature and looks forward to seeing him promote the participation and effectiveness of the environmental voice within ETSI, and overseeing ETSI’s […]

ECOS has submitted comments on the eight standards of the material efficiency (M/543) project that were under secretarial enquiry in November. The series of standards cover a considerable range of material efficiency parameters, including durability, reparability and recyclability of products, and are meant to provide a set of generic assessment methodologies to facilitate future regulatory […]

ECOS et ses organisations membres en Belgique, Inter-Environnement Wallonie et Bond Better Leefmilieu, ont organisé le 14 novembre dernier un workshop sur la contribution des normes à la protection de l’environnement, et comment l’améliorer. Cet atelier a été un véritable succès si l’on considère la difficulté de compréhension de la normalisation et la faible participation […]