Influence of environmental European Product Policies on product design – current status and future developments

Great environmental impacts along the life cycle of products might be avoided in the early steps of design. Thus several EU regulations encourage manufacturers to create products considering the whole life cycle of products. European Product Policies aim at boosting the EU market to be progressively more sustainable. With this purpose, several policies product-related coexist under the scope of different EU regulations, for example: Ecodesign Directive (2009/125/EC), Labelling Directive (2010/30/EU), Green Public Procurement (GPP COM (2008) 400), EU Ecolabel (Regulation EC No 1980/2000), Building the Single Market for Green Products (COM (2013) 196 and related Recommendation (2013/179/EU)). While Ecodesign and Labelling Directives are compulsory for certain energy-related and energy-using products, GPP, EU Ecolabel and the Single Market for Green Products establish voluntary measures for some product categories. The Ecodesign Directive defines minimum requirements for products to access the single market considering their life cycle. The Labelling Directive is focused in the energy consumption during the use phase providing purchase relevant information to the consumer. GPP facilitates public authorities to procure goods with reduced environmental impacts. EU Ecolabel awards the environmental excellence of products. There are relevant aspects of these policies instruments which need to be considered towards an efficient, future oriented and more sustainable design of products. To anticipate to future environmental requirements leads business to competitive advantages. The objective of this paper is to assess how these product policies currently affect the design of products. Main goals, features, target products and future potentialities of several product policies will be described in detail.

CALERO PASTOR Maria;  MATHIEUX Fabrice;  BRISSAUD Daniel; 

2014-12-17

ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV

JRC84531

2212-8271,   

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2212827114006702,    https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC84531,   

10.1016/j.procir.2014.03.130,