Policy Background
Energy efficiency policies are one of the cornerstones to meet our targets on climate change. Policies addressing the improvement of the energy performance of products and appliances are particularly crucial to change trends in CO2 emissions.
The European Commission is currently taking key decisions on mandatory requirements for a broad number of products. Provided there are ambitious enough, they could substantially improve products sold in the EU and have a decisive effect to achieve half of the EU 2020 target on emission reductions.
Voted in 2005, the Directive on the Ecodesign of Energy-Using Products (so-called “EuP-Directive”) sets the framework to decide on policies directly affecting markets in the 27 Member States and covering all priority energy-using products: boilers, lightbulbs, TVs, fridges, washing machines, air-conditioners, electronics, etc.
This directive – despite being less known than other climate policies – addresses half of all emissions and is crucial to reverse business-as-usual trends. These ecodesign requirements may range from an expansion of energy labelling to the setting of minimum performance requirements effectively phasing-out the most inefficient products.
As an example, through an ambitious Ecodesign measure for boilers and water heaters alone, the EU could cost–effectively save 210 million tons of CO2 and around € 44 billion on energy bills a year!
However, the NGOs monitoring this policy process at Brussels level are concerned about pressures from some Member States and industry groups to weaken the provisions in several ways. If these efforts are successful, the achievement of Europe’s climate change goals will be seriously undermined.
The Ecodesign policy process is only starting to deliver its implementing measures. In parallel, some political discussions are on-going to expand its scope to other categories of products: tyres, windows, building materials, food, clothes, furnitures, etc.
click on the image below to discover the Ecodesign policy process in more details.
