1. Building the Single Market for Green Products (SMGP)
Michele Galatola Product Team Leader
DG Environment – Sustainable Production and Consumption Unit

2. What is presented is DG ENV opinion/proposal
Disclaimer
The Communication “Building the Single Market for Green Products” is now in Inter Service Consultation.
The information provided does not reflect (yet) the opinion of all Commission services.
What is presented is DG ENV opinion/proposal

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

5. What is the situation of environmental assessments today?
The need for action
What is the situation of environmental assessments today?
Several methods and standards exist (ISO since 1996), many recent developments focus on one issue (e.g. climate change, water)
1 expert doing assessments using 3 different methods will most probably end up with 3 different results
3 experts doing assessments using the same method should necessarily end up with similar results

6. 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 6 6

7. How (content of the Communication “package)
Objective
To improve the availability of clear, reliable and comparable information on the environmental performance of products and organisations
How (content of the Communication “package)
Make available to Member States and other stakeholders two comprehensive methods for the calculation of the environmental footprint of products (PEF) and organisations (OEF).
Launch a wide Pilot phase to develop and test all the operational measures and supporting activities that would be needed to exploit the full potential of the environmental footprint methods.
Improve the guidance on the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive (UCPD).
Provide “principles” on communicating the environmental performance of products and organisations (transparency, clarity, comparability, completeness, reliability, availability and accessibility).
Continuous international dialogue.

8. 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

9. 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 9 9

10. Future Internal discussion among Commission services (March 2013)
Formal adoption of the Communication "Building the Single Market for Green Products“ (March/April 2013)
Launch of a European pilot on PEF/OEF implementation (April 2013)
Start of the pilots (September 2013)
End of the pilots (September 2016)
Analysis of results and decision on future policy applications, if any (September 2016 onwards)