The new Commission approach on the eco-design framework, which seeks to help achieve the EU’s climate commitments, will seek to be less intrusive in people’s daily lives. In its new approach, to be unveiled before the end of this year, the Commission plans to restrict the list of products to six electrical appliances – hand dryers, electric kettles, lifts, solar panels, automation and control systems for buildings and refrigerated transport containers – Commission Vice-President Frans Timmermans announced on Tuesday 8 November.
“What we decided, what the Commission president decided, was that given past experience with eco-design, we should create more political ownership of the whole process, because sometimes at the level of commissioners in the College in the past there was surprise at what had been decided at the level of the services (Ed: Commission experts) and then presented to the outside world, and we want to avoid that”, said Timmermans at an event organised by European consumer organisation BEUC.
EU eco-design policy is often criticised as an example of Commission interference in people’s daily lives.
Timmermans said, too, that the Commission had analysed very carefully which products would yield the biggest results in terms of energy saving. “As you know those products who had the biggest yield in energy savings were already on the list and are already subject to eco-design but now we need to go into the next phase and select further products that would have a good impact in terms of energy saving (...) In our working plan we will focus on products with the most savings potential”, he went on to say, citing hand dryers, lifts, electric kettles and solar panels as examples.
The Commission also enlarged the scope of its approach so as to give more attention than in the past to wider resource-efficiency, not just energy and water use, seeking to explore how to improve recyclability, durability, reparability of products. The new approach also took a fresh look at previous work plans and confirmed the importance of the reviews of existing eco-design standards so that we keep up with technological progress, Timmermans stated.
According to BEUC’s estimates, implementing the eco-design framework could bring savings of up to €450 per year for consumers. The Commission assessment is slightly more positive, indicating possible savings of nearly €500 per year per household, said Commission vice-president with responsibility for the economic hub, Jyrki Katainen. The new framework could add an extra €55 billion in yearly revenues for European businesses, he added.
Thanks to eco-design, energy savings by 2020 will be equivalent to Italy’s annual primary energy consumption. According to the preliminary work plan agreed by the College, further work would bring energy consumption savings by 2030 equal to one year’s primary energy consumption of Sweden. (Original version in French by Emmanuel Hagry)