Status of Ecodesign Preparatory Studies for Product Groups Identified as Potential Regulatory Targets

The European Commission pursues a “Working Plan” when it comes to the development and revision of EU ecodesign legislation. The current Working Plan commenced in 2016 and runs until next year. As well as outlining ongoing work and reviews for 2016-2019, the Plan identified seven indicative product groups as potential targets for ecodesign implementing measures. The identification of these groups was informed by an earlier investigative study that gave consideration to the criteria for establishing implementing measures, namely that the product should group should:

• Have a significant volume of sales and trade in the EU, indicatively more than 200,000 units per year;
• Have a significant environmental impact in the EU; and
• Present significant potential for improvement in terms of its environmental impact without entailing excessive cost.

If, indicatively, a product group fulfils this criteria and is recognized by the Commission as a potentially worthy regulatory target, an ecodesign preparatory study will be undertaken. Each study follows a defined methodology called MEErP: the Methodology for the Ecodesign of Energy-related Products. This entails completing various tasks, as follows:

• Task 0 – Quick Scan (Optional). This is optional to Task 1 in the case of large or heterogeneous product groups, where it is recommended to carry out a product screening to begin with.
• Task 1 – Scope. This includes defining the product group and researching and summarizing existing product standards and any other legislation that may be applicable in addition to ecodesign.
• Task 2 – Markets (volumes and prices).
• Task 3 – Users (product demand side).
• Task 4 – Technologies. This is an assessment of the product supply side, including both best available technology and best not yet available technology.
• Task 5 – Environment and economics. Essentially, this is a base case life cycle assessment and exercise in life cycle costing.
• Task 6 – Design options.
• Task 7 – Scenarios (Policy, scenario, impact and sensitivity analysis).

What, then, are the seven indicative product groups and what is happening with regard to each? The table below provides a summary. With only a year to go before the present Working Plan comes to an end, one might expect ecodesign preparatory studies to be well underway in each instance, if not yet complete. This is not quite the case, however, with studies for three of the seven indicative product groups yet to start. It will be interesting to see what further headway is made between now and the end of 2019.