Renewed EU Sustainable Development Strategy
This part of overview of EU environmental legislation shows legislation connected with Integrated Product Policy and Eco-Design of Energy-using Products.
Integrated Product Policy is the European Commission’s long term environmental strategy for development of more sustainable products. The core issue in IPP is to stimulate life cycle oriented product development. All products cause environmental degradation in some way, whether from their manufacturing, use or disposal.
Integrated Product Policy (IPP) seeks to minimise these by looking at all phases of a products’ life-cycle and taking action where it is most effective. The life-cycle of a product is often long and complicated. It covers all the areas from the extraction of natural resources, through their design, manufacture, assembly, marketing, distribution, sale and use to their eventual disposal as waste. At the same time it also involves many different actors such as designers, industry, marketing people, retailers and consumers. IPP attempts to stimulate each part of these individual phases to improve their environmental performance.
IPP is very complex, however, in relation to electrical and electronic products four directives are essential: The Directive on Waste from Electric and Electronic Equipment - “WEEE”., The Directive on Energy Labeling, The Directive on the Restriction of the use of certain Hazardous Substances in electrical and electronic equipment - “RoHS” and the Directive on the eco-design of Energy-using Products - “EuP”. The fi rst two directives (“WEEE” and RoHS) were presented in privies presentations. In this part of EU environmental legislation overview more details concerning the last directive 2005/32/EC - „EuP” will be presented.
The Directive 2005/32/EC on the eco-design of Energy-using Products (EuP), such as electrical and electronic devices or heating equipment, provides coherent EU-wide rules for eco-design and ensure that disparities among national regulations do not become obstacles to intra-EU trade. The Directive does not introduce directly binding requirements for specifi c products, but does defi ne conditions and criteria for setting, through subsequent implementing measures, requirements regarding environmentally relevant product characteristics and allows them to be improved quickly and efficiently.
Products that fulfi l the requirements will benefi t both businesses and consumers, by facilitating free movement of goods across the EU and by enhancing product quality and environmental protection. The Directive constitutes a breakthrough in EU product policy and introduces many innovative elements together with concrete application of the principles of the “better regulation” package.