Promoting and standardising sustainable product design
The Ecodesign Directive and instruments such as the EU Ecolabel or the EU Green Public Procurement criteria already deal with certain sustainability aspects of products.

New legislation on the sustainable product policy will incorporate a comprehensive set of requirements to ensure that products on the EU market will be designed to last longer, will be easier to reuse, repair and recycle, and will contain recycled materials rather than primary raw materials wherever possible.

These provisions will limit single use products and will aim to reduce waste. They will also combat premature obsolescence and will prohibit the destruction of unsold sustainable goods.

Priority will initially be given to groups of products that consume high quantities of resources.

Giving consumers and public purchasers the means to choose
The revision of EU consumer protection legislation will ensure that consumers have access to reliable and relevant information on products, their lifespan, and the availability of repair services, spare parts and repair manuals. Consumers will benefit from a new "Right to Repair".

Today, consumers, businesses and other market stakeholders are overwhelmed with the numerous environmental labels and environmental performance methods available to them. To address this situation, the new circular economy action plan stipulates that "green claims" should be based on standardised criteria for assessing the environmental footprint of products throughout their life cycle.

This standard method for calculating the environmental footprint of products must be able to provide reliable, comparable and verifiable data throughout the European market so that all economic stakeholders can make the most environmentally friendly decisions.

Representing 14% of the EU's GDP, public administrations can be powerful drivers of demand for sustainable products. This is why the European Commission is considering the inclusion of mandatory minimum criteria and targets for sustainable public procurement in sectoral legislation.

Promoting circularity in production processes
The European Commission will adopt different measures promoting greater circularity in industry:

  • Reviewing the Industrial Emissions Directive
  • Developing a system of declaration and certification implemented by businesses
  • Supporting the circular and sustainable bio-based products sector
  • Promoting the use of digital technologies, particularly the development of a passport for digital products for tracking, tracing and mapping resources
  • Encouraging the use of green technologies through a strengthened verification system.