Q&A: New ecodesign regulation could activate an era of sustainable products

With our ecodesign expertise across many products and sectors, ECOS has advocated for an ambitious ESPR every step of the way – with many of our positions taken up by the European Commission and Parliament. We hope to see the ESPR’s transformative potential realised next week.

What is the ESPR, and what products will it cover?

The Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR) [1] aims to make every product placed on the EU market sustainable by default – starting with its design. It will establish a framework to set ecodesign requirements for a broad range of products, with the goal of improving circularity, energy performance, and sustainability.

Published in March 2022, the proposal builds on the successful 2009 Ecodesign Directive [2], which has significantly reduced the environmental impacts of many energy-related products by incentivising manufacturers to design more energy and resource efficient products, and at the same time pushing the worst-performing ones off the market. The existing Directive is expected to deliver about one-third of the savings needed to achieve the EU’s 55% emission reduction target by 2030 and has saved consumers up to €285 per year from their energy bills.

Priority sectors could be part of the final ESPR text, such as textiles and furniture, with the possibility for further product groups to be added based on their environmental impact and circularity potential. The success of the initiative will depend on its pace of implementation: prioritising products and horizontal measures would reduce the risk of delays and ensure that the most polluting products are dealt with first.

Not all products will be directly regulated by the ESPR. Certain pieces of legislation, like the Construction Products Regulation (CPR), are meant to replicate its ambition. However, if such legislation does not sufficiently address sustainability, the ESPR might be able to intervene. This makes the scope of the ESPR potentially very wide-ranging.

Why is it important for the environment?

The ESPR will ensure that making design choices based on environmental considerations is self-evident. There is an urgent need for regulations to tackle the lifecycles of all products, especially at the design phase, where up to 80% of environmental impacts are determined. Focusing only on a product’s end of life is insufficient: sustainability must be built into a product’s whole lifecycle and design – the ESPR offers a tool to make it happen on an extensive, unprecedented scale.

The ESPR has the potential to introduce ecodesign requirements for a wider number of products. It could also introduce new measures that did not exist in its predecessor, the Ecodesign Directive, such as a greater focus on broad environmental impacts, an explicit focus on substances of concern, information requirements and the creation of a digital product passport (containing details of a product’s composition), and performance requirements based on improved sustainability (toxic-free, reuse, recyclability, and material footprint, for example).

What impact will the ESPR have on consumers?

The ESPR will change how products are designed and bring about significant benefits in terms of toxic-free, long lasting, repairable products. Even though some changes won’t be noticeable to consumers, such as changes in substance or composition (e.g., hazardous chemicals may be removed from certain types of products and replaced with less harmful ones), consumers will still benefit.

Sustainable products are more durable, repairable, energy-efficient, and should be free of hazardous chemicals. Consumers will no longer need to spend a lot of money to compensate for flawed everyday products – for example, those that need to be replaced too often or break instantly when they are dropped or washed. The ESPR will also provide more transparency and traceability throughout supply chains, empowering consumers to make more informed purchasing decisions.

Improving the performance of products will not limit the choice of consumers. Instead, it will drive companies to provide improved choices. Better products and sustainable solutions will benefit both end-users and the environment.

How will it impact businesses?

The impact of the ESPR will be reflected globally. Minimum requirements will apply to all products entering the EU market, meaning that non-EU manufacturers wishing to do business within the Single Market will need to ensure that their products comply with the ESPR. This will have positive knock-on effects on how products are designed worldwide. Such measures will make EU manufacturers globally competitive based on environmental ambition.

What are environmental NGOs calling for?

The answer is simple: we want sustainable products to be the norm. Short lived, disposable, toxic, unrepairable items and consumption models based on them must become a thing of the past.

Both the European Commission and the European Parliament have proposed visions that would be an important step towards transforming the EU economy into one that is more sustainable and circular. We support the European Commission’s original ESPR proposal, with the European Parliament’s proposed improvements – many of which reflect our long-standing asks.

We want the new ESPR to:

• Link the ESPR’s objectives to key environmental indicators – including carbon and material footprints.
• Ban the destruction of unsold goods – the most wasteful scenario in any economy – in the textiles and electronics sectors, with definitions that close potential loopholes.
• Introduce a broad definition of substances of concern that ensures all possible substances are included, as well as the ability to address hazardous substances in product groups, and full transparency of substances in the products via the digital product passport.
• Outline a transparent and agreed-upon list of priority sectors to address first. This will avoid delays and allow work to commence immediately.
• Support an ambitious and timely backstop clause on cement in case other legal frameworks don’t deliver.
• Apply to all physical products traded on the EU market. ESPR should be able to intervene if existing sector-specific legislation fails to sufficiently address that sector’s environmental impact. For example, the Construction Products Regulation (CPR).
• Ensure active civil society participation in an inclusive Ecodesign Forum, similar to the existing Ecodesign and Energy Labelling Consultation Forum, with long-term and stable funding for civil society to stay engaged in the process.
• Introduce appropriate market surveillance and enforcement mechanisms to prevent distortion of the Single Market and unfair competition between actors who comply with the rules, and those who do not.
• Introduce strong sanctions in cases of non-compliance.
• Include online marketplaces in the scope and hold them liable in cases of non-compliance.
• Remove the possibility of establishing voluntary industry agreements that have failed to be more effective than mandatory rules [3].
• Establish mandatory criteria on green public procurement within the ESPR framework to provide a much-needed boost in demand for truly green products.

The ESPR is an essential piece of legislation that will provide much-needed direction to numerous product groups – including many that ECOS has paid close attention to for years. Read more about our position here [4].

What is happening and when?

The next trilogue to discuss the ESPR will begin on the evening of 4 December 2023.

Once an agreement is reached, companies should start to take this legislation into account when designing products – but they will not be regulated immediately. The ESPR decides the framework to regulate different product sectors, and subsequent secondary legislation to make this vision come to life. It will therefore take time to redesign products for sustainability.

Defining and aligning on priority sectors will help to speed up the process and set up ambitious minimum requirements, starting with products ECOS has worked on for several years, like textiles, furniture, and high-impact intermediary products such as steel, cement, and chemicals.

Quote

Valeria Botta, Head of Circular Economy & Nature at ECOS – Environmental Coalition on Standards, said:

“Ecodesign is the superstar of EU environmental policy. Expanding this legislation to cover more products and more criteria can catapult us into a new era of sustainability, with goods that are increasingly circular, energy efficient, and toxic-free – a transition our planet urgently needs. ESPR negotiators must seize this final chance to illuminate a sustainable path and cast away the shadows left by polluting products.”

Resources

[1] Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR) proposal, European Commission, 30 March 2022: https://environment.ec.europa.eu/publications/proposal-ecodesign-sustainable-products-regulation_en

[2] Ecodesign Directive 2009/125/EC: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:02009L0125-20121204&from=EN

[3] All we want for Christmas… is for the EU to finally give up on voluntary agreements! Coolproducts and ECOS: https://www.coolproducts.eu/uncategorized/all-we-want-for-christmas-is-for-the-eu-to-finally-give-up-on-voluntary-agreements/; and When Empty Promises Won’t Do – Why regulation is needed to end built-in obsolescence of printers, ECOS: https://ecostandard.org/news_events/when-empty-promises-wont-do-why-regulation-is-needed-to-end-built-in-obsolescence-of-printers/

[4] Position paper on Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation: Priorities for trilogues, ECOS, autumn 2023: https://ecostandard.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/2023-10-12_FINAL_ESPR-trilogues_ECOS-position-paper.pdf

Contact

In addition to the information in this briefing, we can offer interviews on request. Please get in touch.

Alison Grace, Press & Communications Manager at ECOS

alison.grace@ecostandard.org +32 493 19 22 59