The EU Single Market for Green Products initiative (SMGP)

Transcription

1 Material 4 International Workshop on Future Utilization of Visualized Information of Environmental Impacts in Product Life Cycle & Corporate Value Chain at Tokyo, Japan The EU Single Market for Green Products initiative (SMGP) Imola Bedő Coordinator on production DG Environment Sustainable Production and Consumption Unit

2 EU institutions 2 European Commission Right of initiative European Parliament Citizen representation Decisionmaking Council of the EU Setting broad priorities Decisionmaking

3 1) Policy context 3

4 WHY? 4 More than 400 environmental labels in the world Issues: = Confusion, mistrust Free-riders win Costs 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?

5 Policy mandates 5 Single Market Act 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. Council Conclusions 20 December 2010 The Council invites the Commission to develop a common methodology on the quantitative assessment of environmental impacts of products, throughout their lifecycle, in order to support the assessment and labelling of products 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)

6 Policy links 6 Industrial policy Single Market Act SMGP Sustainable Consumption and Production (SCP) GPP Ecodesign Non-financial reporting Research

7 2) Method development 7

8 Timelines 8 Product Environmental footprint Organisation Environmental footprint Analysis of existing methodologies March 2011 Draft methodology guides June 2011 September 2011 Training on methodology July Oct 2011 Invited Stakeholder Meeting November 2011 Pilot tests concluded 20 Dec 2011 February 2012 Stakeholder consultation on the policy options January 2011 April 2012 Final methodological guide 1 st Quarter 2013 PEFCR/OEFSR testing Mid-2013?

9 Features 9 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)

10 10 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 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

11 PEFCRs & OEFSRs 11 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 multifunctionality problems.

12 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

13 3) Stakeholder consultation 13

14 The consultation 14 Running from 11 January 2012 until 3 April 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).

15 PEF overall findings 15 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

16 OEF overall findings 16 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.

17 4) Next steps 17

18 Next steps 18 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

19 Testing 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

20 Testing 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 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

21 Testing 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

22 LCA 1 cup of coffee 22 EXAMPLE - RESULTS 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) COMMUNICATING RESULTS NO PEFCR (2012) WITH PEFCR (fictitious example; possible if PEFCR available) Environmental impacts Water Resources Climate E vs. vs. Verified by Performance level B Performance level C Performance level A

23 23 Future Evaluation of pilot results Decision on future policy applications

24 24 For any further information