What the draft EU Ecodesign Regulation brings
The proposal for the EU Regulation on Eco-design, known as the Eco-design for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR), serves as a successor and expansion of the previous directive from 2009. Its primary aim is to significantly exceed the original focus on energy and material efficiency by emphasizing additional key aspects such as durability, reliability, reusability, ease of upgrade, reparability of products, their recyclability, and maintenance.
A significant extension of this regulation is its applicability to nearly all product categories on the market, unlike the previous directive, which was mainly limited to energy-intensive products such as household appliances.
Exceptions from this regulation include specific sectors such as food, animal feed, pharmaceutical products, and living organisms, as well as motor vehicles. Special attention is given to defining and implementing specific eco-design requirements for selected product groups, including iron, steel, aluminum, textiles, furniture, tires, cleaning agents, chemicals, ICT products, and other electronics, based on progressively issued delegated acts by the European Commission.
Another new element is the prohibition of destroying unsold textiles and footwear, with a transitional period of two years after the regulation comes into effect, exceptions for small and micro-enterprises, and a six-year delay for medium-sized enterprises. The European Commission will also have the authority to introduce similar bans for other groups of unsold products.
An innovative part of the regulation is the introduction of digital product passports, which are crucial for ensuring that products placed on the market or in operation meet certain informational requirements. These passports are to contain accurate, complete, and up-to-date information, at least matching the expected lifespan of the product, and must be based on open standards, machine-readable, structured, traceable, and portable. Their operation is designed to ensure a high level of security and data protection, while personal data of customers may be stored only with their consent.
By 2026, the European Commission will establish a registry of digital product passports, which will store unique identifiers of products, operators, and devices. This will be complemented by a web portal for searching and comparing information in product passports.
It is now up to the European Parliament and the Council to formally approve the new regulation, which is expected in the coming two to three months, before the European elections in June 2024. Following approval, the regulation will officially enter into force twenty days after its publication in the Official Journal of the EU. The regulation will be directly applicable in all Member States, without the possibility of divergent national regulation.
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