Presentació de Karolina D’Cunha, Deputy of Unit of Eco-Innovation & Circular, Directorate of Green Economy of DG ENV, European Comission, en el marc de la jornada ‘The role of ecodesign in the circular economy’ que va tenir lloc a Brusel·les el 16 de juny de 2015

1. European Union policy on
Ecodesign in the circular
economy
Karolina D'Cunha
Deputy Head of Eco-Innovation & Circular Economy Unit
DG Environment
European Commission
Conference - The role of ecodesign in the circular economy
Brussels, 16 June 2015

2. EnergyEnergy
Less PRODUCT SUSTAINABILITY More
Numbersofproductsinthemarket
Interventions:
• Support
innovation
Interventions:
•Pricing and trading
•Voluntary initiatives
•Producer responsibility
•Business support
•Procurement
•Labelling
•Public information
Interventions:
•Minimum
standards
PRODUCT INTERVENTIONS – Overall approach
Cut out the
least
sustainable
products
Encourage
development
of new, more
sustainable
products
Drive the existing market towards greater
sustainability
Ecolabel
Ecodesign
GPP
EU Product policies

3. EnergyEnergy
Ecodesign (Directive 2009/125/EC)
• Setting of mandatory requirements for energy-related
products to improve their environmental performance
• Products not meeting these requirements cannot be
placed on the market (applies also to imports)
• Allows access to single market (CE-marking based)
• Establishes the framework (conditions, criteria,
procedures, etc.)
• Legal Basis Article 114 (TFEU): free movement of
products within the internal market
• Products to be addressed are stipulated in Ecodesign
Working Plans
• Basis for any measure is a technical preparatory study
(MEErP methodology)

4. EnergyEnergy
Ecodesign (Directive 2009/125/EC)
• Covers all significant environmental impacts of products
over the life-cycle
• So far, mostly been used to address energy efficiency of
products in the use phase
• Requirements have recently been adopted on durability for
some product groups (hose, electric motor of vacuum
cleaners; information on notebook batteries)
• Potential to address material efficiency of products to
ensure durability, reparability, modularity, easy recycling,
etc. (80% of a product's environmental impact is
determined by the design phase)
• Several projects are ongoing to develop verifiable criteria
on resource efficiency

5. EnergyEnergy
Ecodesign - Criteria for action
• What products?
• Significant volume of sales and trade, indicatively
200.000 units p.a.
• Significant environmental impact
• Significant potential for improvement in terms of its
environmental impact without entailing excessive costs
• No (significant) negative impact on:
• Functionality
• Health and safety
• Affordability
• Industry’s Competitiveness

6. EnergyEnergy
Energy Label (Directive 2010/30/EU)
"the indication by labelling and standard product information of the
consumption of energy and other resources by energy-related
products"
• Sets mandatory labelling requirements for energy-
related products to enable consumers to make informed
choices
• Ranks products according to their energy efficiency on
an A to G scale
• Obligation to label how product performs, can continue
to sell products with any performance level
• For the time being, only "in use phase" consumption of
resources can be labelled
• No possibility to label other "embedded" environmental
impacts

7. EnergyEnergy
Energy Label (Directive 2010/30/EU)
• Once the majority of products in a certain
category reach class A, up to three classes
(A+/A++/A+++) may be added on top of class A
• Displays annual energy consumption or energy
consumption per cycle, as well as other impacts:
e.g. water consumption, volume of the appliance,
etc.
• Ecodesign measures are often accompanied by an
Energy Label (regulation) mainly for consumer
products

8. EnergyEnergy
Energy Labelling – examples
Washing machines Vacuum cleaners Luminaires

9. EnergyEnergy
Ecodesign and Energy labelling -
Results Achieved
• 175 Mtoe primary energy savings per year by 2020, more
than the annual primary energy consumption of Italy
• 340 Mt CO2 equivalent less greenhouse gas emissions,
more than 7% of EU total emissions in 2010
• € 102 billion net saving on consumer expenditure,
equivalent to € 432 per household per year
• € 55 billion extra revenue for industry, wholesale and retail
sector
• 800.000 extra direct jobs for industry, wholesale and retail
sector

10. EnergyEnergy
Looking forward – Revision of Energy
Labelling Directive
• Being developed, to be adopted by the
Commission shortly
• Back to A to G (including
rescaling)
• Market surveillance
(e.g. product registration?)
?

11. EnergyEnergy
• Circular economy systems keep
the added value in products for
as long as possible and
eliminate waste.
• They keep resources within the
economy when a product has
reached the end of its life, so
that they can be productively
used again and again and
hence create further value.
• Source: COM (2014) 398 "Towards a circular
economy"
What is Circular Economy?

12. EnergyEnergy
What is the EU up to?
• Waste policy: ambitious yet realistic targets
• Looking at whole 'circle': Exploiting synergies and
overcoming barriers across the whole value chain
• Focus on EU added value: concrete priorities for
actions at the EU level that bring added value in
promoting a transition towards a more circular economy
• Financing circular economy

13. Focus on products
Product design
Requirements for products
Requirements for producers
Technical design (more homogenous material use to facilitate material
separation, requirements on dismantability, reparability, recyclability)
Material design (requirements on chemical composition of products to
make them, as far as possible, free of hazardous substances affecting
future recycling or recovery and ensuring that the materials used to
produce products can be easily separated and recycled without quality
loss)
Action against obsolescence (e.g. extending the duration of a minimum
warranty, requirements for manufacturers to provide for certain
categories of products information on repair and maintenance or to
provide spare parts for a number of years after purchase) and at
ensuring that information on the chemical content of products is
available to facilitate their recycling and recovery

14. EnergyEnergy
Product’s “technical” design
• Manual dismantling allows recovery of over 90% of the
precious metals in waste flat screens.
• For manual dismantling to remain economically viable,
one should be able to dismantle a small screen in less
than 11 minutes.

15. EnergyEnergy
Product’s “chemical” design
• Link between rules on chemicals and waste for achieving
higher recycling rates.
• Example - PVC covered under REACH: raises questions
for SMEs active in plastic recycling.

16. EnergyEnergy
Possible priority sectors

17. EnergyEnergy
Circular Economy package &
product design
• Role of Ecodesign to ensure that product design
takes account of circular economy
• How to make better use of existing tools? Durability,
reparability, reusability, recyclability
• Role of consumer legislation
• Ecodesign Working Plan 2015-2017 (ongoing work,
e.g. compressors, electronic displays; revision of
existing measures e.g. lighting, wet appliances; new
product groups? Horizontal requirements on e.g.
repairability?...)

18. EnergyEnergy
Next steps
• New, more ambitious proposal by end 2015
• Reflection on the proposal involving all relevant Commission
services
• Stakeholder consultation until 20 August 2015
• Stakeholder conference 25 June 2015
• Proposal planned for Q4 2015

19. EnergyEnergy
Thank you for your attention
Karolina D'Cunha
Deputy Head of Unit
«Eco-innovation and circular economy»
European Commission
Directorate General for the Environment
karolina.d'cunha@ec.europa.eu