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Commission slims down green product policy ambitions

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Published 19 June 2003 - Updated 09 November 2006
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On 18 June, the Commission finally adopted its long-awaited Communication on Integrated Product Policy opting for a more voluntary approach to greener products.

After a long consultation with industry and NGO stakeholders and internal fights between DG Environment and DGs Enterprise and Internal Market, the Commission finally adopted its long-awaited Communication on Integrated Product Policy on 18 June. The Commission favours a voluntary approach and multiple stakeholders' consultation over concrete legislative measures. Business opposition to mandatory targets in IPP is behind this change.

The Communication outlines a two-phased strategy to implement Integrated Product Policy (IPP) which aims at:

  • improving the coherence of existing tools that cover many different products;
  • focusing on those products that have the greatest potential for environmental improvement.

The general IPP toolbox (mixture of environmental, consumer-oriented and legislative instruments) is designed to:

  • create the right economic and legal framework through the use of environmental taxes, voluntary agreements, greener standards and such like;
  • promote life-cycle thinking by improving the availability of life-cycle information tools, considering obligations for producers on the design of products and implementing the product dimension in environmental management schemes;
  • give consumers the information to decide: this includes encouraging greener public procurement, encouraging green corporate purchasing and gradually expanding the existing Community labelling initiatives, such as the EU Eco-label.

The Commission will parallely focus its action on some products that are environmentally damaging. It wants to develop a methodology for identifying these products in co-operation with stakeholders. Once these pilot products will be determined, the Commission will define a series of actions to be undertaken by the stakeholders to reduce the particular product's environmental impacts.

The Commission intends to assess the need to impose obligations on producers regarding the IPP approach by means of a discussion document in 2005. This paper could, "if appropriate", include "general obligations" for specific products.

 

Positions: 

Nadine Toscani, UNICE policy officer, said "European businesses are firmly committed to continuous amelioration of product performance by giving balanced attention to all characteristics of a product (environmental performance, safety, marketing, consumers' choice, functionality...) throughout its life-cycle".

UEAPME, The voice of SMEs in Europe, calls on the Commission to focus on small businesses and micro-businesses in particular when carrying out the new Impact Assessment procedures. It stresses that before deciding whether general obligations should be imposed on producers, it is vital that authorities ensure awareness-raising and technical assistance measures amongst SMEs and, particularly, micro and small businesses.

Melissa Shinn from the European Environmental Bureau, espressed her disappointment that the Communication fails to to create significant reductions in the environmental life-cycle burden of products and services. She considers that an IPP Framework Directive should be adopted and include clear environmental objectives and oblige producers to supply product life cycle information. Such a directive would create the "working framework" to establ ish working roups on specific IPP tools, such as economic incentives.

 

Next steps: 
The Commission presented the following timetable for action:
  • consultation with the stakeholders to determine the pilot products will run until the end of October 2003 and launch of pilot projects;
  • in 2005, The Commission will issue a practical handbook on best practice with Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA) and a discussion document on the need for product design obligations on producers;
  • in 2006, the Commission will develop an action programme for greening its procurement;
  • in 2007, identification of a first set of products with the greatest potential for environmental improvement and the beginning of action upon them.

 

Background: 
Integrated Product Policy (IPP) seeks to reduce the negative environmental impacts of products throughout their life-cycle “from cradle to grave”. 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.

In its Green Paper from February 2001, the Commission had suggested several possible instruments, such as tax incentives for green products and producer responsibility for end-of-life products.

 

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