Communication: Ecodesign Working Plan 2016-2019

The EU has a number of legislative instruments which translate the EU's energy and climate policy goals into various strands of action. Ecodesign, complemented by energy labelling rules, supports the Commission's overarching priority to strengthen Europe’s competitiveness and boost job creation and economic growth; it ensures a level playing field in the internal market, drives investment and innovation in a sustainable manner, and saves money for consumers while reducing CO2 emissions. It contributes to the Energy Union and 2030 energy efficiency target, the commonly-agreed climate goals and to the objective of a Deeper and Fairer Internal Market.

The ecodesign and energy labelling framework has been one of the most effective policy instruments at EU level to promote energy efficiency, estimated to contribute around half of the energy savings target for 2020. The legislative framework has the dual purpose of ensuring that more energy-efficient products come to the market (through ecodesign) while encouraging and empowering consumers to buy the most efficient products based on useful information (through energy labelling). By doing so, it reduces the energy consumption of consumers and businesses, and thereby their energy and utilities bills. Furthermore, it safeguards the internal market and prevents unnecessary costs for business and consumers due to divergent national requirements.

The moderation of energy demand is one of the 5 dimensions of the Energy Union framework strategy. An ambitious and efficient ecodesign and energy labelling policy will remain indispensable to help achieve the priorities the Commission has set out for the Energy Union and it will help reach the climate policy goals agreed at COP21 in Paris in December 2015.

This Ecodesign Working Plan contributes to the Commission's new initiative on the Circular Economy, which promotes a transition towards a more circular economy in the EU through a series of measures covering the whole lifecycle of products and materials. There is an increasing need, and political priority, to improve resource efficiency in the EU. Product design is a key aspect in this respect, as it can have significant impacts across the product life cycle e.g. in making a product more durable, easier to repair, reuse or recycle. The Ecodesign directive already covers all significant environmental impacts along the life-cycle of products but the focus so far has been on energy efficiency improvements. In future, Ecodesign should make a much more significant contribution to the circular economy, for example by more systematically tackling material efficiency issues such as durability and recyclability.

This Working Plan sets out the Commission's working priorities under the ecodesign and energy labelling framework for 2016-2019. Building on work undertaken on the basis of the first two Working Plans, the new Working Plan presents ongoing work and upcoming reviews of existing product-specific measures; it identifies additional product groups to be further examined (through studies, stakeholder consultation and impact assessment) with a view to inform possible Commission proposals for ecodesign and/or energy labelling requirements; and it sets out how ecodesign will contribute better to circular economy objectives. Taken together, fresh measures from new products in this Ecodesign Working Plan, in addition to reviews of existing measures, have an estimated potential to deliver a total in excess of 600 TWh (or 50 Mtoe) of annual primary energy savings in 2030. This is equivalent to reducing CO2 emissions by approximately 100 million tonnes per year in 2030.

European Commission: Press Release, IP/16/4009 (30.11.16): Adoption of the 'Clean Energy for All Europeans' package http://www.europeansources.info/record/adoption-of-the-clean-energy-for-all-europeans-package/

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