The EU Single Market for Green Products initiative (SMGP) · The EU Single Market for Green...
Transcript of The EU Single Market for Green Products initiative (SMGP) · The EU Single Market for Green...
The EU Single Market for Green Products initiative (SMGP)
Imola Bedő Coordinator on production
DG Environment – Sustainable Production and Consumption Unit
Material 4
International Workshop on Future Utilization of Visualized Information of Environmental Impacts in Product Life Cycle & Corporate Value Chain at Tokyo, Japan
EU institutions
European Commission
Right of initiative
Council of the EU
Setting broad priorities Decision-making
European Parliament
Citizen representation
Decision-making
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1) Policy context
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WHY?
• More than 400 environmental labels in the world
• Issues:
• What is green? • How do I prove that my
product or company is green? • If I choose one approach, will
it be accepted by everyone? • Do I have to prove I'm green
in different ways to different clients?
• Will consumers and business partners understand my claim?
= Confusion, mistrust
Free-riders win Costs
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Policy mandates
Proposal No 10: Before 2012, the Commission will look into the feasibility of an initiative on the Ecological Footprint of Products to address the issue of the environmental impact of products, including carbon emissions. The initiative will explore possibilities for establishing a common European methodology to assess and label them.
Single Market Act
The Council invites the Commission to “develop a common methodology on the quantitative assessment of environmental impacts of products, throughout their life-cycle, in order to support the assessment and labelling of products”
Council Conclusions 20 December 2010
Resource Efficiency Roadmap – 20 September 2011
Establish a common methodological approach to enable Member States and the private sector to assess, display and benchmark the environmental performance of products, services and companies based on a comprehensive assessment of environmental impacts over the life-cycle ('environmental footprint') (in 2012)
Ensure better understanding of consumer behaviour and provide better information on the environmental footprints of products, including preventing the use of misleading claims, and refining eco-labelling schemes (in 2012)
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Policy links
SMGP
Sustainable Consumption and Production (SCP)
GPP Ecodesign
Industrial policy
Single Market Act
Non-financial reporting
Research
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2) Method development
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Analysis of existing methodologies
Final methodological guide
Draft methodology guides
Stakeholder consultation on the policy options
Pilot tests concluded
June 2011
20 Dec 2011
1st Quarter 2013
March 2011
Training on methodology
February 2012
Product Environmental
footprint
Invited Stakeholder Meeting 28-30 November 2011
January 2011 – April 2012
Organisation Environmental
footprint
September 2011
13-15 July 2011 19-20 Oct 2011
Timelines
PEFCR/OEFSR testing Mid-2013?
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The Environmental Footprint:
• Builds on existing methods
• Is applicable without having to consult a series of other documents (“one-stop shop”)
• Provides comprehensive evaluation along the entire life cycle (from raw materials to end of life / waste management)
• Provides comprehensive coverage of potential environmental impacts (no ‘single issue’ method)
• Enables comparability of results, e.g. of different products (but only if PEFCRs/OEFSRs are available)
Features 9
What are the differences between PEF and traditional LCA?
Not that many!! PEF is a way of doing an LCA which enables to deliver more consistent, reliable and reproducible results. Moreover, compared to a traditional ISO 14040 compliant LCA, PEF includes features that make easier the communication of its results both in B2B and B2C. These new characteristics of PEF are possible due to: • a limitation of methodological flexibility, • more stringent requirements related to data quality, and • the introduction of normalization and weighting
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Defining the goal and scope of the study;
Defining relevant/irrelevant impact categories;
Identifying appropriate system boundaries for the analysis;
Identifying key parameters and life-cycle stages;
Providing guidance on possible data sources;
Completing the Resource Use and Emissions Profile phase;
Providing further specification on how to solve multi-
functionality problems.
PEFCRs & OEFSRs 11
Challenges
• Life Cycle data, data quality & availability
• Need to develop consistent product and sector-specific rules
• Involvement of stakeholders (particularly SMEs)
• The verification system
• Need for international dialogue
3) Stakeholder consultation
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Running from 11 January 2012 until 3 April 2012
426 respondents
Covering the following areas:
Sustainable Consumption and Production (SCP) and
Sustainable Industry Policy (SIP)
Green Public Procurement (GPP)
Actions for improving the environmental performance of
products (Product Environmental Footprint – PEF)
Actions for improving the environmental performance of
organisations (Organisations’ Environmental Footprint –
OEF).
The consultation
PEF overall findings
General agreement that current policies should be adjusted and
strengthened, not move to a new regulatory framework Support for the development of voluntary PEF scheme, based on a
reliable and scientifically validated methodology 48% of private companies and 45% of industry associations agree
that PEF would improve the environmental performance of products Many responses stressed the importance to support the PEF
methodology with robust and freely available life cycle data Support for development of product category rules, product
benchmarks, simplification for SMEs and international coordination Some stakeholders urged for a global harmonisation Doubts on the ability of private consumers to understand the
information based on PEF. Fewer parameters focusing on hot spots was preferred over displaying all environmental impacts
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OEF overall findings
Main drivers: opportunity for financial savings (93%) and strategic importance for future competitiveness (88%);
Main barriers: lack of time and expertise, lack of consistency between existing initiatives and insufficient market rewards;
Main problems with existing activities: not all risks are captured, multiple initiatives and ways of reporting;
SMEs: simplified approach at EU level - targeted information, incentives and support at national level;
Broad support for elements of EU action – efforts to align approaches internationally (40% strong agreement), performance improvement through common approach, improving reliability of information, meaningful incentives (74%)
Policy option most preferred: recommendation to MS on the use of the common methodology, EU promotion of the methodology on a voluntary basis.
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4) Next steps
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Next steps
Promoting ONE method instead of MANY in the EU
3-year testing
Continuing international activities
Dialogue at governmental level hosted by UNEP Capacity building by UNEP for main developing trading partners
on Life Cycle Assessment, environmental footprinting, life cycle data generation
Development of SME support tools
Improve access to good quality life cycle data
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Testing 2013
Objectives
1. Test the process for the development of PEFCRs and OEFSRs
2. Test different approaches for verification systems (embedded impacts, traceability)
3. Communication vehicles
The Commission will "lead" a limited number of pilots but there will also be a "call for volunteers" addressed to Member States or industries who might like to lead the development of more PEFCRs and/or OEFSRs.
The pilot can be on an intermediate or a final product.
There is no obligation to run both a PEF and OEF pilot
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Testing 2013
European Commission to provide "rules of the game": Governance Rules for representativeness for a sector or product group Main milestones of the pilot European Commission support expected: Technical helpdesk Testing of verification
WHO can propose a pilot:
1. Single companies 2. Cluster of companies 3. National, European or non-European industry associations 4. NGOs 5. Member States or non EU governments 6. Any mix of the organisations mentioned above
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Testing 2013
Main milestones during the pilot – e.g. PEF Definition of the scope Modelling the “representative” product (that becomes the benchmark) Screening PEF study applied to the “representative product” Identification of the most relevant impacts and processes Definition of relevant PEFCR requirements (including additional
environmental information not based on PEF screening results) Application of the PEFCR to “real” products Verification of 1-2 verification approaches The values calculated on real products are used to define the classes
of performance against the respective values calculated for the benchmark
Identification of 3-4 suitable communication vehicles (B2B and/or B2C)
Test of the communication vehicles in real cases
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LCA 1 cup of coffee
Environmental impacts
Water
Resources
Climate
Verified by …
E
NO PEFCR (2012) WITH PEFCR (fictitious example; possible if PEFCR available)
Performance level B
Performance level C
Most important life cycle phase for a cup of coffee: USE Most important impact categories (relevant phases along the life cycle): • Climate change (energy use in production and use phase) • Water use (raw material and use) • Resource depletion (mineral, fossil)
EXAMPLE - RESULTS
COMMUNICATING RESULTS
vs. vs. Performance level A
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Future
Evaluation of pilot results
Decision on future policy applications
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For any further information
http://ec.europa.eu/environment/eussd/product_footprint.htm http://ec.europa.eu/environment/eussd/corporate_footprint.htm
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