1. Building the Single Market for Green Products
Dr. Michele Galatola
Product team leader
DG Environment – Sustainable Production and Consumption Unit

2. Policy mandates Single Market Act Council Conclusions 20 December 2010
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 life-cycle, 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) 2 2

3. = WHY? Confusion, mistrust Free-riders win Costs
More than 400 environmental labels in the world
Only for GHGs, 80 leading reporting methods and initiatives
Issues:
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?
Does green mean more expensive? =
Confusion, mistrust
Free-riders win
Costs 3 3

4. A world of de facto requirements for green products
Swedish EPD
PAS 2050
BP X30-323
Swiss footprint
IT carbon footprint
EPD schemes JP, SKorea, Taiwan

5. Some figures…
Lack of consistency: a principle barrier for displaying environmental performance (72.5% stakeholders in agreement)
Market potential is high: 80% of EU consumers buy green products at least sometimes – 26% buy them regularly
89% of EU citizens believes that buying green products makes a difference for the environment
Only half of consumers find it easy to differentiate green products from other products
Only half of EU citizens trust producers' claims about the environmental performance of their products
Most important considerations when buying: quality (97%), price (87%), environment (84%)
69% of citizens support obliging companies to publish reports on their environmental performance
These figures are taken from the draft 2013 Eurobarometer on "Attitudes of Europeans towards Building the Single Market for Green Products"

6. Without SMGP… Appetite for environmental performance information grows
but there's little push for coordinating approaches E.g. a recent report found that 94 companies used 585 different indicators in environmental reports. Of the indicators disclosed, 22% were used by more than 3 corporations; 55% were used only once; 16% were used twice; and 7% were used three times. This would remain standard practice.
new initiatives and methods emerge to satisfy demand for information – proliferation increases
Data from draft 2013 Eurobarometer on ATTITUDES OF EUROPEANS TOWARDS BUILDING THE SINGLE MARKET FOR GREEN PRODUCTS

7. Without SMGP…
Missed opportunities for environmental performance improvement for products and for organisations
E.g. PUMA has stated that 94% of the environmental impacts of its products occur along the supply chain – not taking a life cycle approach makes us blind to these issues
Missed opportunities for competitiveness
Missing an additional push for environmental technologies and solutions In a recent survey more than 1/3 of 250 business executives said that they could not keep up with consumer demand for sustainable products and services and 62% declared that sustainable investments were motivated by consumer expectations for green products
Savings opportunities not exploited at a large scale E.g. companies like Xerox who saved 400 million dollars by implementing LCA-based design for environment would remain the best practice, not the norm
Data from draft 2013 Eurobarometer on ATTITUDES OF EUROPEANS TOWARDS BUILDING THE SINGLE MARKET FOR GREEN PRODUCTS

8. Consultations
5 years continuous consultations (EU and internationally) during the ILCD development process;
1st wave of pilots (10 products + 10 organisations)
Physical workshop with about 150 stakeholders form worldwide + web-streaming recording available on the website
Public consultation running from 11 January 2012 until 3 April 2012 (426 respondents)
A long list of bilateral meetings with single companies, trade associations, chambers of commerce, EU and non-EU governments, NGOs
The two draft methods have been published on DG ENV public web-site since July 2011 8 8

9. Building the Single Market for Green Products
SMGP
Objective
To improve the availability of clear, reliable and comparable information on the environmental performance of products and organisations
Communication:
Building the Single Market for Green Products
Commission Recommendation
PEF
OEF
3-year Pilot phase
Communication principles
3-year pilot phase
International dialogue
UCPD Guidance
How

10. Roadmap to a Resource Efficient Europe
Policy links
Roadmap to a Resource Efficient Europe
Industrial policy
Sustainable Consumption and Production (SCP)
SMGP
GPP Ecodesign
Single Market Act
Non-financial reporting
Research 10 10

11. Communication Principles Transparency Availability and accessibility
Reliability
Completeness
Comparability
Clarity
UCPD
Improve guidance – uniform enforcement
Recommendations for future action – Multi-stakeholder Dialogue on Environmental Claims Report – references PEF and OEF

12. International Main issue: initiatives developing in isolation -
Actions
Cooperation with trading partners - more co-ordinated approach
Common quality requirements for LCI data and database
Capacity building in developing countries (UNEP)

13. Recommendation
Recommendation on the use of the EF methods to measure and communicate the life cycle environmental performance of products and organisations
Use/ promote: in voluntary MS policies, by private companies and organisations, schemes (e.g. private reporting or labelling schemes), by the financial community (e.g. investment decisions)
Contribute: availability of high-quality life cycle data
SME features
MS: invitation to provide assistance and tools and report back
Private sector: support to SMEs in supply chains, simplified calculation tools
Annexes:
Annex 1 - Potential fields of application of PEF and OEF methods and results
Annex 2 - Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) Guide
Annex 3 – Organisation Environmental Footprint (OEF) Guide

14. The Environmental Footprint:
The methods
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)
Methods analysed
Products
ISO (2006)
ISO (Nov 2010d)
ILCD (2010)
BP X 30 (2009)
PAS 2050 (2008, Nov 2010d, Jan 2011d)
Ecological footprint (2009)
WBCSD/WRI (product: Nov 2010)
Organisations
ISO (2006)
Bilan Carbone
DEFRA guide (GHG)
CDP Water footprint
WBCSD/WRI (corporate: Nov 2010)
GRI
Main differences to similar methods
a limitation of methodological flexibility,
more stringent requirements related to data quality, and
the introduction of normalization and weighting

15. Product Standards, Greenhouse Gas Protocol (WRI/ WBCSD)
How was the PEF Guide Developed?
Environmental assessment documents analysed:
ISO 14044
ISO 14067
BP X
PAS 2050
Ecological footprint
ILCD
Product Standards, Greenhouse Gas Protocol (WRI/ WBCSD)

16. Environmental footprint
Where does the EF fit?
Environmental footprint
ISO14044
……..
Carbon footprint
Water footprint
ISO14001,
EMAS
Chemical footprint
ISO14025

17. Overview of the EF methodology

18. 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

19. Examples of “clear” requirements
Offsets
Impact categories and impact assessment methods
Electricity use
Biogenic carbon emissions and removals
Direct and indirect land use change
Renewable energy generation
Temporary storage and delayed emissions
A single formula for EoL
Nomenclature
Data quality requirements
Allocation rules
Reporting
Reviews and reviewers’ qualifications

20. Simplification features
ONE common methodology instead of VERY MANY
Few and clear rules for product categories and sectors (PEFCRs/OEFSRs)
Focusing on what really matters (e.g., 3 most relevant impacts for consumer products instead of the more than 200 we currently find in construction products EPDs)
Great simplification "potential" for SMEs – provided that the Commission will manage in the coming years to implement a number of supporting measures

21. Environmental Footprint methods
Consumers’ comparison
Modulated incentives/investments
Greening the value chain: full potential of Resource Efficiency
Environmental Footprint methods
(2013)
PEFCR/ OEFSR
(Pilots)
B2B
B2C
Reporting
High quality
life cycle data
Quantified performances but NO benchmark
Hotspot analysis, D4E
Some Resource Efficiency benefits
PEFCR = Product Footprint Category Rules
OEFSR = Organisation Footprint Sector Rules
B2B = Business to Business
B2C = Business to Consumers
D4E = Design for Environment

22. Examples of possible uses of the PEF method
(This is a non exhaustive list)
optimisation of processes along the life cycle of a product;
support product design minimising environmental impacts along the life cycle;
communication of life cycle environmental performance information on products (e.g. through labelling, documentation accompanying the product, websites and apps) but without comparisons or comparative assertions;
schemes related to environmental claims, in particular ensuring sufficient robustness and completeness of claims;
reputational schemes giving visibility to products that calculate their life cycle environmental performance;
voluntary schemes involving the measurement and communication of life cycle environmental performance information to consumers;
identification of significant environmental impacts in view of setting criteria for ecolabels.

23. Timeline Deadline of applications: 21 June, 12:00 CET
Selection of product groups and sectors: July 2013
Start of the pilots (September/October 2013)
End of the pilots (September 2016)

24. 2nd phase Future policies Policy discussion
Peer review of the pilot phase and of alternative methods tested under similar conditions
Internal evaluation of the pilots starting with September 2016

25. For any further information 26 26