1 Objectives and scope

Environmental Screening and Evaluation of Energy-using Products (EuP) Final Report

1.1 Objectives
1.2 The Directive
1.3 Scope of this Memorandum

1.1 Objectives

The objective of this Memorandum is to provide a background document for the Danish Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for use in the assessing of the impact of the EuP Directive 2005/32/EC of 6 July 2005.

The EPA will assess and prioritise focus, resources and instruments according to the traditional types of environmental impact, such as health and eco-toxicity (substances and waste), resources, non-renewable energy resources and effects on climate changes and global warning.

The Memorandum thus has two objectives:

Firstly, it aims to highlight the areas of general environmental impact affected by the directive and shall assist the EPA in prioritising the focus, efforts and instruments to be applied in relation to the implementation of the EuP directive in Denmark.

Secondly, it aims at extracting and highlighting horizontal themes from the product oriented policy adopted by the European Commission.

The conclusions have been derived by the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the EPA. However, it is our intention that the conclusions can be used as guidance for selecting the strategic focus points.

1.2 The Directive

Many aspects of energy-using products (EuPs) have a negative impact on the environment (emissions to air including greenhouse gases, to soil, water, and energy consumption, etc.). The Council and the European Parliament adopted a Commission proposal for a Directive on establishing a framework for setting Eco-design requirements (e.g. energy efficiency) for all energy using products in the residential, tertiary, and industrial sectors.

The four main objectives of the EuP Directive are:

to ensure the free movement of energy-using products within the EU
to improve the overall environmental performance of these products and thereby protect the environment,
to contribute to the security of energy supply and enhance the competitiveness of the EU economy,
to preserve the interests of industry, consumers, and other stakeholders

The Commission launched an invitation to tender for 20 preparatory studies corresponding to the major categories of Energy using Products. The studies provide the Commission with the necessary information background to prepare for the next phases, the impact assessment, the consultation with the Eco-design Forum and a draft implementing measures. References to all the Preparatory Studies are found in section 20.

The background papers produced in the preparatory studies describes relevant environmental impact issues, but the conclusions are often focused on energy aspects only. Hence, the Danish EPA is interested in a wider assessment and medium to long-term perspectives of the product groups in terms of total environmental impact, existing Ecolabelling and related regulations, market access and growth, technology trends, etc.

It has to be kept in mind that the Preparatory Studies for each product group are based on hundreds maybe even thousands of working hours by experts in each field in an attempt to identify both impacts and improvement options. Due to the limited time available for preparing this Memorandum, it has not been possible give such detailed guidelines for each product group.

1.3 Scope of this Memorandum

The memorandum is structured so that overall conclusions and comments are provided first followed by a detailed description of each product group or cluster of product groups.

Following this structure, chapter 2 provides an executive summary with the main conclusions and findings from the work performed up till now. Chapter 3 provides an overview of the methodology used in the environmental screening. Hereafter, chapters 4 through 19 provides the background data and individual conclusions for each product group or cluster of product groups.

Finally, chapter 20 through 22 provides references to all the Preparatory Studies, the literature references as well as an overview of Figures and Tables.