Europaudvalget 2020-21
EUU Alm.del Bilag 639
Offentligt
2416910_0001.png
NOTAT
Denmark’s
response to the public consultation on the
Sustainable Products Initiative
Danish priorities of special importance for the Sustainable Products Initiative:
The SPI should include a number of
sustainability principles and horizontal measures,
including
common minimum requirements
that are legally binding for all existing and future
product legislation in the EU.
Products should either be regulated as part of the Ecodesign Directive or sectoral regulation under the
scope of the sustainability principles and horizontal measures in the SPI.
When widening the scope of the Ecodesign Directive, the directive should be
strengthened to deliver
on energy efficiency targets
Key messages:
Denmark welcomes the
widening of the Ecodesign Directive
beyond energy-related products to
make it applicable to the
broadest possible range of products.
To increase the effectiveness of the current Ecodesign regulatory framework, the Commission must
ensure sufficient allocation of resources
to manage the tasks laid out in the current work plan for
the Ecodesign Directive in parallel with the work on the SPI.
The
Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) is an important instrument,
which could
replace the EcoReport Tool in the widened Ecodesign Directive, with the MEErP revised accordingly.
Also, the
PEF should be the primary methodology for other new and existing EU product
legislation
and other related policies, and other
green claims
to identify the most important
environmental aspects of a product or service.
The SPI should include a generic, overall “automatic”
ban of the most hazardous chemicals
in
products, as is the case in the current regulation of CMR substances in the regulation of toys and
cosmetics.
The
digital product passport is a highly needed tool
to accelerate the circular economy, which
should be an integrated part of the legislative SPI proposal in order to enable tracking and tracing and
ensure access to information about products and their components. To ensure coherence across policies,
the digital product passport should be used as a once-only vehicle for the sharing of product information
by companies.
Ministry of Environment
Slotsholmsgade 12
1216 Copenhagen K Denmark
Phone +45 38 14 21 42
Fax +45 33 14 50 42
• CVR
12854358
• EAN
5798000862005
[email protected]
www.mim.dk
EUU, Alm.del - 2020-21 - Bilag 639: Notat vedr. EU-Kommissionens høring om initiativet vedrørende bæredygtige produkter
The Sustainable Products Initiative (SPI) plays an essential role in making products fit for a
climate neutral, resource efficient and circular economy, reducing the negative impact on
environment, climate and health from products and services. Minimum requirements in the
product legislation must continuously promote energy and resource efficiency, as well as
durable and safe products. A coherent legal framework for sustainable products should aim
at making sustainable consumption and production easy, transparent and trustworthy for
consumers as well as producers. The initiatives presented must support a well-functioning
single market for sustainable products, with effective and harmonised implementation across
the EU as well as enforcement of e.g. product requirements, standards and methods. An
effective and uniform market surveillance in the EU, based on the new market surveillance
regulation can promote products durability, reusability, upgradability, reparability,
renewability and chemicals safety not just for the benefit of consumers but also for ensuring a
level playing field for businesses.
Challenges to making products sustainable
Denmark agrees with the majority of the market-related challenges listed in the public
consultation. However, one challenge does surpass them all; that products do not sufficiently
cover the costs of environmental externalities during resource extraction and processing,
production, use and waste management. This fact contributes to lacking economic incentives
for design for circularity, and benefits a linear approach. Denmark does not agree with the
statement that more sustainable products are often too expensive for households with lower
incomes. In many product categories, Ecolabelled products are not more expensive than
conventional products. Denmark strongly agree with the listed policy-related challenges and
would like to underline the need for both enforcement of requirements for minimum circular
quality of products to be marketed (the ecodesign directive principle) and establish economic
benefits for gradual improving the circular quality above this enforced minimum level.
Measures to make sustainable products the norm
It is increasingly important to assess the resource consumption and material efficiency
aspects of energy-related as well as non-energy related products. Hence, it becomes
increasingly important to assess the resource aspects in a consistent method across different
studies. Denmark finds that the Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) is an important
instrument with a potential of being an underlying methodology for assessing environmental
and climate impact in relation to the Ecodesign Directive, and that the EcoReport Tool could
be replaced by PEF and the MEErP revised accordingly, in the widened Ecodesign Directive.
In addition, Denmark finds that the PEF methodology should be the primary methodology
for other new and existing EU product legislation and related policies incl. EU Ecolabel,
Green Public Procurement, Packaging and Packaging Waste Directive, Cosmetics Regulation,
Toy Safety Regulation, and other green claims etc. to identify the most important
environmental aspects of a product or service. Furthermore, the potential of PEF should be
seen in relation to the existing recognized method of environmental product declarations
(EPD) used in construction. EPDs have been used for a number of years and its wide use
should be taken into consideration in the further development of PEF, with a goal of aligning
the methods. It must continue to be possible to use EPDs and the underlying standards to
document the environmental impacts of construction products and construction works.
Using PEF as an EU harmonised life cycle assessment method can provide the scientific
knowledge of the environmental hotspots, including energy use, of the representative product
in a life cycle perspective. Denmark supports the Commissions work in updating the PEF
impact categories to address chemical use, toxicity and direct and indirect land use.
2
EUU, Alm.del - 2020-21 - Bilag 639: Notat vedr. EU-Kommissionens høring om initiativet vedrørende bæredygtige produkter
Currently, the EcoReport Tool and the MEErP methodology are used to formulate Ecodesign
product regulations, but this methodology has no uniform way to calculate the impact if e.g.
the lifetime of products increases. In general, EcoReport Tool and the MEErP are insufficient
in handling resource efficiency and circularity as such, as well as other non-energy related
environmental impacts, e.g. chemicals and toxicity, biodiversity, and direct and indirect land
use. Denmark supports the on-going revision of the MEErP in order to improve the
methodology and better incorporate resource efficiency, chemicals, toxicity and circular
economy in future or revised regulations.
The PEF methodology should also qualify the increasing proliferation of private ecolabels and
use of (false) green claims by providing a common methodology for measuring
environmental impacts of products and services. In the light of the ongoing initiative on
green claims, the PEF methodology should together with the EU Ecolabel and other Type I
ecolabels be used as a way to substantiate green claims and private labels, especially to avoid
greenwashing. To be clear, Denmark would welcome the integration of the PEF-methodology
as the foundation for the EU Ecolabel and other Type I ecolabels, using the existing labels as
the vehicle to communicate green characteristics to consumers. This would build on the
already high recognition rate for the EU Ecolabel of companies and consumers. Today, it is
expected that a company shall be able to document a green claim, but there is no threshold or
definition of what it means to have a “green” product or service. In this regards, it is
important that the Commission and Member States establish a verification and surveillance
system towards the use of PEF. Private Green claims should only be allowed if, through PEF
and/or Type I ecolabels, the company can confirm that the relevant product or service
environmentally is among the best third of the market. The Commission should establish a
sufficient effective mechanism to monitor the proper uses of PEF in the market. The
Commission should ensure registration of products’ environmental footprint and request
that green claims are verifiable at the latest when the product is placed on the market. The
registration and verification should be coherent and aligned with a digital product passport if
such exists for that particular product.
The PEF methodology and the accompanying PEF Category Rules (PEFCR) should be revised
over time and developed regularly by the Commission in collaboration with MS and
stakeholders and finally adopted in a PEF-committee. This should be done in order to secure
democratic legitimacy. PEFCR should
as a minimum
be developed for product categories
for which ecolabel criteria will be established or updated. The Commission should elaborate a
PEF governance system regarding gradual development of the methods, maintain and ensure
efficient and low-cost access for businesses etc. to the high-quality database (secondary data),
maintain a product database regarding published PEFCR based PEFs and elaborate and
regularly update benchmarks for the prioritized product categories.
Furthermore, we recognize that in the CEAP “food” is mentioned as one of the key product
value chains and a priority product category. The specific challenges concerning PEF for food
and food labelling should be discussed in the suitable context such as in the initiatives
regarding sustainable food production and labelling in the Farm to Fork Strategy, which
focus on specific measures to increase the sustainability of food distribution and
consumption.
Design for sustainability - sustainability requirements for products
The legislative SPI proposal should include a number of sustainability principles and
horizontal measures, including common minimum requirements that are legally binding for
3
EUU, Alm.del - 2020-21 - Bilag 639: Notat vedr. EU-Kommissionens høring om initiativet vedrørende bæredygtige produkter
all existing and future product legislation in the EU. The principles mentioned in the Circular
Economy Action Plan (CEAP) is a good starting point.
Products should either be regulated as part of the Ecodesign Directive or sectoral regulation
under the scope of the sustainability principles and horizontal measures in the SPI. The SPI
proposal should address how and where different types of products and services are best
regulated, including electronics and ICT, textiles, furniture, high impact intermediary
products such as steel, cement and chemicals, batteries, means of transport, packaging,
plastics, and construction products and construction works.
Denmark welcomes the intention for the SPI legislative proposal to widen the scope of the
Ecodesign Directive beyond energy-related products so as to make it applicable to the
broadest possible range of products and make it deliver on circularity, taking into account
existing well-performing regulation of product groups, and securing a harmonisation where
relevant. In the widening of the Ecodesign Directive, particular attention should be given to
priority products mentioned in the CEAP. Denmark considers textiles, furniture, means of
transport, equipment in data-centres, as well as high-impact intermediate products such as
steel, cement and chemicals, to be highly relevant. Likewise, Denmark asks the Commission
to investigate the relevance of including services within the widened scope of Ecodesign,
especially as relates to data and data services from data-centres.
Increasing the effectiveness of the current Ecodesign regulatory framework should be a
priority in order to deliver on its potentials. Consequently, the Commission must ensure
allocation of sufficient resources to manage the tasks laid out in the current work plan for the
Ecodesign Directive and delivering on the objectives on energy-related products laid out
herein in parallel with the work on the SPI.When widening the scope of the Ecodesign
Directive, the directive should be strengthened to deliver on energy efficiency targets to
contribute to the EU climate target of 55 pct. CO2 neutrality by 2030.
EU legislation on ecodesign and energy
labelling has delivered half of the EU’s energy
efficiency target in 2020 and should continue to contribute significantly to this target. The
inclusion of more products in the scope should include products that benefit from the
Ecodesign approach of promoting better product design, thereby making it possible to verify
and supervise whether products are up to standard.
Focus should be on promoting better product design with regard to durability, reparability,
re-usability, recyclability, smart appliances, Cost of Ownership (purchase price, installation,
maintenance, energy consumption and disposal), Life Cycle Cost (Cost of Ownership and
environmental externalities), safety including chemicals safety and longevity. Denmark
encourages the Commission to start the necessary work on provisions related to these
characteristics and put in motion the necessary standardisation processes in case no
harmonised standard is currently available, thus ensuring safe products with indication of
expected lifetime. This could be prioritised e.g. in the upcoming revision of the regulation on
computers and computer servers and other ICT initiatives under Ecodesign.
When developing product requirements for resource efficiency, it should be ensured that they
can be implemented by manufacturers and enforced by market surveillance agencies (MSA).
This should be done building on the experiences of the energy efficiency requirements under
the Ecodesign Directive, including the documentation burden for manufacturers and MSA.
The widening of the Ecodesign Directive as part of the Sustainable Products Initiative should
not unnecessarily delay or diminish the current efforts of the existing Directive or its
4
EUU, Alm.del - 2020-21 - Bilag 639: Notat vedr. EU-Kommissionens høring om initiativet vedrørende bæredygtige produkter
implementing measures. The inclusion of more circular economy aspects should continue,
encompassing energy and environmental aspects in the whole life cycle. To this end, the
Ecodesign and Energy Labelling Working Plan 2020-2024 should be completed as soon as
possible.
The SPI and the EU Sustainable Chemicals Strategy are closely interrelated parts of realising
the CEAP and must be seen in context. The objectives in the Chemicals Strategy concerning
traceability and information on chemical content and safe use, safe-and-sustainable-by-
design, non-toxic material cycles by minimising the presence of chemicals of concern in
products, extension of the generic approach to risk management to ensure that consumer
products do not contain substances that are carcinogenic, mutagenic or toxic to reproduction
(CMR substances) (and the possible expansion of the chemicals covered by the generic
approach) are highly relevant for the SPI.
So far, chemicals of concern have been covered by the specific regulation pertaining to
electric and electronic equipment in the Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS)
Directive. A broader range of products regulated under the SPI calls for chemical
requirements to be added in the product legislation in order to ensure safety as well as non-
toxic material loops for the new product categories. Focus should be on reducing the
presence of hazardous substances in products, including substitution and ban of the most
harmful substances with reference to the Classification, Labelling and Packaging (CLP) and
Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and restriction of Chemicals (REACH) regulations.
Enhancing the performance of products on a broad range of environmental parameters is not
expected to follow an improvement on all parameters simultaneously. Thus, trade-offs
between requirements may occur, resulting in requirements not automatically supporting the
same targets or potentially even working against each other. E.g. enhanced energy efficiency
or prolonged lifetime might involve use of chemicals that would ideally be substituted by less
harmful chemicals. The development of sustainability-principles as well as criteria should
make room for this, allowing progress in one area without necessarily demanding it to be the
case on every single one. The guiding principle should be that progress in reducing one type
of environmental impact must never mean a setback in another. Furthermore, the trade-off
choices should be fully documented.
Concerning chemicals of concern, the SPI should in general implement a generic, overall
“automatic” ban of the most hazardous chemicals in products
(specific exemptions that are
duly justified by societal needs can be made), as is the case in the current regulation of CMR
substances in the regulation of toys and cosmetics. In addition, further chemical
requirements of certain relevance to specific product groups should when relevant be
included in the specific product regulations, e.g. allergens in textiles.
Responsibility for information, including Digital Product Passport(s)
Denmark finds that a digital product passport is a highly needed tool to accelerate the
circular economy. The framework for the digital product passport should be an integrated
part of the legislative SPI proposal in order to enable tracking and tracing and ensure access
to information about products and their components concerning; origin and composition
including declaration of hazardous chemicals and substances of concern, their durability,
composition, reuse, repair and dismantling possibilities, availability of spare parts, and end-
of-life handling, as well as their environmental footprint and performance. Also, this
framework needs to be closely aligned with horizontal provisions on data sharing to be laid
down in the forthcoming Data Act.
5
EUU, Alm.del - 2020-21 - Bilag 639: Notat vedr. EU-Kommissionens høring om initiativet vedrørende bæredygtige produkter
The information in the digital product passport should not only facilitate sustainable
production and consumption, but should also be a tool for consumers, empowering them to
make more sustainable choices when they buy products. In developing the digital product
passport, it is important to acknowledge the hesitance companies have towards sharing
business sensitive information, which should be dealt with in the design of the digital product
passport and how data is reported here. Finally, it is important to emphasize, that the digital
product passport needs to be embedded in a data infrastructure in order to make it easily
shared with relevant stakeholders (business partners, investors, authorities etc.).
Denmark finds that it is important to ensure that the digital infrastructures and the digital
product passports provide an environmentally sound information on energy and CO2-
emissions, resource and material efficiency and can stimulate increased usage of secondary
raw materials. Information about products could serve as a tool for importers and
distributors of products to set requirements to the manufacturers on use of materials and
chemicals in the products. Besides static information collected along the supply chain and
fixed at the moment of placing the product on the market, the digital product passport could
also include dynamic information
generated throughout the product’s use. We also encourage
the Commission to look into the possibilities of launching pilot projects, involving relevant
stakeholders, for the development of digital product passports for products within the key
value chains identified in the Circular Economy Action Plan. Pilot projects should revolve
around the use of digital technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things and
blockchain, with potential to contribute to tracking and ensuring transparent and reliable
environmental information across value chains. Also, the feasibility of letting the existing
data infrastructure build up by the Peppol standards for electronic business communications
and the eDelivery network provide the infrastructure of the digital product passport should
be studied. It is key that the architecture of the digital product passports integrates existing
databases e.g. SCIP and EPREL and corresponds with a common European Data Space for
Smart Circular Applications. A digital product passport should build on known technology,
with easy access for those to enter and update data, and with a requirement for verification.
Also, it is important to ensure a that the data infrastructure allowing for the sharing of
circular data between companies also outside of Digital Product Passports. Finally, we urge
the Commission to ensure coherence in requirements asking information on products from
companies, to ensure that companies are not asked for the same or similar information more
than once, and ensure that, where relevant, the digital product passport is the main vehicle
(one-time-only) for sharing of information on products.
Circular business models
Denmark finds that strengthening the companies in the EU through support of innovative
circular business models and entrepreneurs should be important aims of the CEAP and the
SPI. Denmark fully supports the Commissions intention to establish sustainability principles
as part of the SPI to incentivise product-as-a-service and other models where producers keep
ownership of the product or the responsibility for its performance throughout its lifecycle.
Denmark sees the further dissemination of circular business models as key to improving
product durability, reusability, upgradability and repairability of products.
Denmark sees digitalisation and the use of data as an enabler for circular business models
that should be fully supported by the Commission. Denmark sees three main types of data
that can underpin different circular business models in collaboration with suppliers and
customers along the value chain: 1) Material traceability data, i.e. information about product
6
EUU, Alm.del - 2020-21 - Bilag 639: Notat vedr. EU-Kommissionens høring om initiativet vedrørende bæredygtige produkter
design, material content, -quality and -origin in products, and whether the materials contain
hazardous substances which are central to assess whether the products can be reused,
repaired, remanufactured or recycled etc., 2) life cycle assessment of environmental and
climate impact, and 3) product performance data, i.e. information on the use and condition
of the products, which can provide companies with information on how they continuously
can maintain and improve the performance of the products.
Companies are experiencing obstacles for collecting, using and sharing of data internally and
along the value chain to promote their circular business models, most notably lack of data-
interoperability. Lack of data standards, data sensitivity, lack of trust in the supply chain and
lack of easy access to public data. Denmark finds that the Commission should play an active
role in helping companies overcoming these barriers thereby supporting them in accelerating
the use of data to enable circular business models by 1) providing clear guidance for sharing
of data and use of relevant tools while respecting companies’ need for
confidentiality around
certain data; 2) by uniforming data formats and standards to increase data interoperability,
and 3) by facilitating easy access to public data for business development e.g. through data
spaces.
Incentives for circularity
Green Public Procurement (GPP)
Denmark fully supports the importance of Green Public Procurement (GPP) to be covered in
the impact assessment, in line with the CEAP reference to proposing minimum mandatory
GPP criteria and targets, and encourages focus on possible incentives to stimulate green
private procurement.
The Commission has developed 20+ GPP product criteria, many inspired by criteria related
to the EU Ecolabel. Where relevant, the Commission shall carry on this praxis, e.g. with
regard to consumable goods like paper, detergents and textile/furniture. Other relevant GPP
criteria could be to focus on Total Cost of Ownership/Life Cycle Costs and standardise
procurement of reused/second hand products. Accordingly, Denmark encourages the
Commission to look more into the integration of TCO/LCC tools into GPP criteria for durable
goods (e.g. cars and lighting ), and to ensure a better and more systematic monitoring of
member states use of GPP criteria, common definitions and tools. That includes looking into
the possibilities of incorporating relevant standardized product information derived from the
GPP criteria in the existing, mandatory electronic invoice thereby ensuring automatic
monitoring of member states use of GPP criteria on the basis of near-real time public
procurement data. In short, if a product fulfils the GPP criteria, it is then stated on the
electronic invoice. PEF should be used to assess the basic environmental profile for a product
area, and to verify GPP criteria with regard to the relevance of the environmental criteria and
hotspots, thereby making sure that GPP is setting criteria for products and services covering
the environmentally performing best third of the market. Finally, Denmark sees public
procurement as an important demand side instrument in supporting the uptake circular
business models, and urges the Commission to integrate support for circular business models
in the work on GPP criteria.
EU Ecolabel
The voluntary EU Ecolabel is an important tool with its “market pull effect” and
is gaining
ground with increasing knowledge, an increasing number of license holders and more EU
Ecolabelled products. Accordingly, Denmark encourages the Commission to revise and
7
EUU, Alm.del - 2020-21 - Bilag 639: Notat vedr. EU-Kommissionens høring om initiativet vedrørende bæredygtige produkter
develop new product groups with even more focus on circular economy thinking, and where
relevant move to product-service systems. The EU Ecolabel provides a trustworthy and
transparent alternative to private labels, but also an easy alternative for green procurers or as
a basis for developing procurement criteria, e.g. the EU GPP criteria. In order to ensure a
coherent product policy, the PEF methodology should be used as the basis for future new
criteria and update of existing criteria. On top of the PEF, the EU Ecolabel should include
other aspects in criteria setting, e.g. social aspects, restrict the use of special hazardous
substances of concern irrespective of its actual risk and quality. In this regard, identification
and tackling the most important differences between the EU Ecolabel and PEF (product
scope, definition and functional unit, primary or secondary data and chemical focus on
hazards or risk) is necessary.
Eco-modulated fees in the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR)
The obligation for collective schemes to modulate the financial contributions paid by
producers, which is a part of the new general minimum requirements for EPR schemes in the
revised Waste Framework Directive, could be an effective instrument to promote better
product design with regard to recyclability and as a way to reduce the presence of hazardous
substances in products. One major limitation for its use is that the modulation must be based
on the actual costs of the waste treatment which makes it difficult to include criteria like
climate effect, durability etc. that does not directly affect the costs of the waste treatment
process. Therefore, in order to reach the goal of giving incentives to better design, it is
important to develop common criteria for the EU, showing how to take into account
durability, reparability and re-usability within the possibilities of the Waste Framework
Directive. Besides, setting individual criteria by each collective scheme or even by each
Member State will create market distortion, as producers then need to develop products to
each national market in order to meet their specific criteria. The Commission should develop
specific criteria for modulated fees for individual product groups based on the PEF
methodology and integrated with other policy instruments such as the eco-design and
ecolabels. The modulation of the EPR fee levels should be a matter of national and
organizational decision.
Compliance with and enforcement of sustainability requirements for products
In order to ensure compliance with the future sustainability requirements for products, it is
the position of the Danish Government that legislative protocols should be supplemented and
compliant with such protocols enhanced through appropriate actions, e.g. coordinated
communication activities across the EU as well as market surveillance enforcement
campaigns focusing on the new opportunities and applicable regulation.
The operational support of the legislative acts are deemed particularly important during the
implementation phase of new regulation in order to promote not only awareness of the new
requirements, but also how these can be met. The initiatives will also help the Market
Surveillance Agencies (MSAs) in gathering information on the level of compliance in different
product groups. Gathering and sharing detailed information on compliance should therefore
be a priority whilst
and after
widening the scope of the Ecodesign Directive, as this will
enable a more targeted and effective enforcement in the years to come.
8