All energy-related products to fall within purview of newly adopted ecodesign Directive
On 24 September 2009, the Council of the EU formally adopted a new ecodesign Directive (recast), following a first-reading agreement, in April 2009, with the European Parliament. Hong Kong traders may by now be aware that the new Directive will extend the scope of the existing Directive 2005/32/EC on the ecodesign of energy-using products (EuP) to cover, in principle, all energy-related products. It is intended to improve the energy and resource efficiency of a much wider scope of products than the EuP Directive, and reduce demand on natural resources. The Directive is expected to significantly work towards the achievement of greenhouse gas emission targets in the EU.
The current eco-design rules cover only energy-using products. Hong Kong traders, especially of electrical appliances, will already know that several implementing measures have already been adopted, covering televisions, lighting, stand-by functions in electronic goods, industrial motors, etc., while others are very much in the pipeline and will cover, among others, computers and their monitors, imaging equipment and sound and visual equipment.
However, in the future, products such as windows, insulation materials or water-using products such as shower heads, or taps, will also be covered (these are only a few examples provided at present). The reasoning behind the new law is that while a redesigning of energy-using products (e.g., televisions) could directly bring about reductions in energy consumption, the greening of energy-related products such as, e.g., bathroom fixtures would reduce the amount of water needed, in turn requiring less energy to heat the water.
As for a product list under the new Directive, there is no such list available. The Commission has not come up with any list, with officials insisting that one must look at the definition of the type of products that would fall within the scope of future implementing measures, to get an idea.
Thus, for the purposes of the new Directive, “energy-related product” means any product having an impact on energy consumption during use which is placed on the market and/or put into service in the EU. This definition includes parts intended to be incorporated into energy related products covered by the Directive, that are placed on the market and/or put into service as individual parts for end-users, and for which the environmental performance can be assessed independently.
Hong Kong manufacturers should bear in mind that the Directive does not itself lay down implementing measures. The Commission will still need to create working groups to study possible design requirements for various product groups and to present concrete draft implementing measures to the Ecodesign Regulatory Committee (made up of Member State experts) and to the Parliament, for final scrutiny and approval.
It may be interesting for Hong Kong’s business community to note that the Commission and several parliamentary members had pushed in 2008 to include items such as clothing, footwear, furniture and cleaning products within the scope of the now-adopted Directive, on the basis of the potential for ecodesign requirements to minimise the environmental impact of the production and/or disposal of such items. The potential for a future extension of the Directive to include such products will be discussed again during a review of the Directive’s effectiveness, but this will only likely begin in 2012.
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