As part of the European Green Deal, the European Commission recently presented the Circular Economy Package which will make sustainable products a norm in the EU. This new set of rules is important to the Intelligent Cities Challenge (ICC) as it will help cities during their green transition therefore encourages cities to read the summary of the Package below and further explore relevant rules.
These new rules, which will apply to almost all physical goods on the European market, are aimed at making them more environmentally friendly, circular and energy efficient. The Package is an important milestone in the implementation of the EU Circular Economy Action Plan and consists of a sustainable products initiative, a proposal about construction products regulation, a proposal on consumers’ empowerment in the green transition and the EU strategy for sustainable and circular textiles.
Consequently, this will have a big impact on many businesses and infrastructures in cities as the Package empowers citizens in their own green transition. For example, a growing demand from citizens means that reuse businesses are now frequently chosen by consumers. Further, the spread of recycling centres – especially for textiles - may be encouraged. The ICC welcomes these wider movements towards circularity across all levels.
Sustainable Products Initiative
The EU initiative on sustainable products is aimed to shift the economic model based today on “take-make-replace” to an economic model based on “repair-reuse-recycle”. Regarding this objective, the Commission launched its initiative to ensure that by 2030:
- More products on the EU market are designed to be durable, energy- and resource efficient. But also, develop the ability to repair and recycle these products and focus on choosing more recycled materials.
- Consumers have access to the right information to make sustainable choices regarding the buying of a product.
- Data is available to companies to assure environmental sustainability and circularity of their products and business models.
To complete this initiative, the Commission include a proposal for a new Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation. This proposal set-up outlines for specific products group to improve amongst other environmental aspects their circularity and energy performance.
Proposal about Construction Products Regulation
Today buildings are responsible for almost 50% of resource extraction and consumption, but also for more than 30% of the European total waste generated each year. To tackle this issue, the Commission highlighted the urge to shift the internal market for construction products to a more sustainable one. The proposal included in the Circular Economy Package is intended to reinforce and modernise the current rules in place. To meet this goal, new product requirements are being developed to ensure that design and manufacture are based on state of the art to make construction products durable, repairable, recyclable and easier to re-manufacture.
Proposal for Empowering the Consumer for the green transition
Considering that ecology is high on consumers’ agendas, this proposal offers more than just a welcome guide to consumers and their choices. To this regard, the Commission announced the creation of a Digital Products Passport linked to a database gathering all information about the products from its creation to its transports. This Passport will help consumers make enlightened decisions when considering buying a product but will also be useful across the supply-chain to brought useful information about reuse, reparation and waste management.
Also included in this proposal, the Commission suggested several amendments to the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive (UCPD) to ban greenwashing. These amendments include the addition of new practices to the list of prohibited unfair commercial practices, amongst them is the fact of not informing about features introduced to limit durability.
EU Strategy for Sustainable and Circular Textiles
The European consumption of textiles has one of the highest impacts on the environment and climate change, and it is one of the top three pressures on water and land use. Therefore, the Commission decided to set out objectives to ensure that by 2030 textiles on the EU market are long-lived and recyclable. The strategy aims to create a greener and more competitive sector, globally more resilient to shocks. For instance, it aims to force fast-fashion brand to reduce the number of collection and make their product more durable. Another key point of the strategy is to set requirements for textiles to make them last longer, repairable and easy to recycle; these requirements will be applied to fashion but also furniture, medical, buildings and vehicles textiles.