Regulation 2024/1781 - Framework for the setting of ecodesign requirements for sustainable products - Main contents

Official Journal

of the European Union

EN

L series

2024/1781

28.6.2024

The European Green Deal set out in the communication of the Commission of 11 December 2019 is Europe’s sustainable growth strategy and aims to transform the Union into a fair and prosperous society, with a modern, competitive, climate-neutral and circular economy and toxic-free environment. It sets the ambitious objective of ensuring that the Union becomes the first climate neutral continent by 2050. It recognises the advantages of investing in the Union’s competitive sustainability by building a fairer, greener and more digital Europe. Products have a pivotal role to play in this green transition. Underlining that current production processes and consumption patterns remain too linear and dependent on a throughput of new materials extracted, traded and processed into goods that are finally disposed of as waste or emissions, the European Green Deal emphasises the urgent need to transition to a circular economy model and stresses the significant progress that remains to be made. It also identifies energy efficiency as a priority for the decarbonisation of the energy sector and for reaching the climate objectives in 2030 and 2050.

To accelerate the transition to a circular economy model, the Commission designed a future-oriented agenda in its communication of 11 March 2020 on a new Circular Economy Action Plan for a cleaner and more competitive Europe (CEAP), with the objective of making the regulatory framework fit for a sustainable future. The CEAP underlines that, ‘for citizens, the circular economy will provide high-quality, functional and safe products, which are efficient and affordable, last longer and are designed for reuse, repair, and high-quality recycling’. As set out in CEAP, there is currently no comprehensive set of requirements to ensure that all products placed on the Union market become increasingly sustainable and stand the test of circularity. In particular, product design does not sufficiently promote sustainability over the whole life cycle. As a result, products are being replaced frequently, involving significant energy and resource use in order to produce and distribute new products and dispose of old ones. It is still too difficult for economic operators and citizens to make sustainable choices in relation to products, given that relevant information and affordable options to do so are lacking. This leads to missed opportunities for sustainability and for value-retaining operations, limited demand for secondary materials and obstacles to the adoption of circular business models.

A fully functioning internal market for sustainable products is a pre-requisite for the establishment of a circular economy in the Union. Common ecodesign requirements at Union level would enable the development, deployment and scaling-up of new circular economy business models throughout the internal market. Such measures would also alleviate the burden on companies and provide industry and consumers with access to reliable and clear data, thereby...