Ecodesign Directive for Energy-Using Products

The Directive is not well-known but is extremely important. It addresses half of the EU's CO2 emissions, and has the potential to achieve the same proportion of the EU’s emissions reduction target. Measures decided under the Directive can range from the setting of minimum performance requirements, effectively phasing out the most inefficient products, to the expansion of energy labelling.

The decision-making process is split by product and based on several stages, involving not only the European Commission but also national governments, the European Parliament and a consultation forum with stakeholders including industry and NGOs. Numerous product groups are already covered and many more are foreseen to be addressed in 2010 and 2011. Currently under discussion are boilers and water heaters, products which together account for a similar amount of emissions in the EU transport sector.

In 2009 the Directive was recast so that its scope will be extended to cover also energy-related products, such as windows and door frames.

CAN-Europe is a member of an NGO Consortium which has won a tender to input inot hte EuP process. this work is led at Brussels level by the European Citizens Organisation for Standardisation (ECOS), the Brussels-based umbrella NGO organisation working on standardisation and product specifications. NGOs are proving to be very important in this process a counter-pressure and sometimes even an effective mediator between differing interests of different industry sectors and Member States.

The following website has more information about the NGO views on Ecodesign, as does the website of the NGO-founded CoolProducts campaign.