First insights on the evaluation of the Ecodesign directive
The European Commission has launched in beginning 2011 a study to assess the functioning of the EU Ecodesign policy process. This study commissioned to CSES will evaluate the successes and impacts of this directive, and discuss opportunities to expand its scope to non-energy products. This is the first preparatory work leading to a possible revision of the Ecodesign directive in 2012-2013.
The first draft chapters of the study have been published. They essentially build on stakeholder contributions, therefore their quality depends on the willingness of stakeholders to contribute. There are unequal parts (depending on the topic covered) and the consultants are still struggling with about a 100 questions relating to important aspects of the evaluation.
To access the documents, read our News entry here.
For those interested in having a look or contributing, a 10-page executive summary is available. For the moment, it is rather cautious and does not provide outstanding suggestions. We hope the consultants will gain confidence in the completion of the study and reinforce their analysis. A stakeholder meeting will take place on 5 October 2011 to discuss the study content.
Environmental NGOs attach great importance to this policy and the improvement of its functionning. Our main priorities are to push for quicker decision-making, ensure that the setting of Ecodesign requirements is more streamlined and dynamic, and suggest improvements in the consistency between the Ecodesign policy and other EU product instruments. The issue of possibly expanding the scope of the directive to other prouct categories can hardly be answered before these priorities are tackled appropriately. We will provide written contributions on all these points in the coming weeks.