The weakness of Voluntary Agreements exposed
Last December saw three Consultation Forum meetings dedicated to Voluntary Agreements, with a focus on games consoles, printers, and taps and showerheads.
The meeting on games consoles pointed to a number of shortcomings in the proposed new version of the VA, and an updated version of the Agreement is to address these before spring. In parallel, an additional review is also expected to be carried out by the end of the year, given the launch of the new generation of consoles by Sony and Microsoft.
The meeting on printers led to the outright rejection of the proposed Voluntary Agreement text, and the industry – both printer and cartridge (re)manufacturers – were asked to deliver an improved version of the VA in the coming six months or be subjected to a regulatory instrument instead.
Lastly, the proposed industry Agreement for a water label on taps and showerheads was received critically by the majority of Member States and other stakeholders. However, no concrete decisions were taken, and the next steps remain unclear, with the Commission working on assessing comments received in writing and clarifying the legal uncertainties raised for the time being. ECOS submitted comments on all three product groups – these can be found on the Coolproducts website.
The three meetings have further exposed the weaknesses of the voluntary agreement approach as an alternative to regulatory measures when addressing energy performance and circularity aspects in products, an issue we have repeatedly raised in the past, most recently in a dedicated Coolproducts blogpost.
