Talk to the average person about ecodesign, and they might tell you about ecolabels and energy efficiency, but few would be able to outline, or even know of, the Ecodesign Directive.

Implemented in 2005, the Directive on the Ecodesign of Energy-Using Products sets minimum energy requirements for over 40 product groups, including televisions, boilers and fridges, in the 27 European member states. Set to be revised by the end of 2014, the process of collecting information has been a long and tedious one, Stephane Arditi, Policy Manager at the European Environmental Bureau (EEB), tells me.

Through his work at the EEB and the Coolproducts Coalition – an organisation made up of NGOs working to ensure a better ecodesign policy – Arditi tries to draw focus back to ecodesign, something that he believes the European Commission (EC) is not awarding enough focus to.

“For me, the highest level of the European institution does not pay enough attention to how ecodesign could contribute to energy savings”, says Arditi.

“Because it’s micro-level policy and therefore less under the spotlight, and harder for high decision makers to take claim of, they tend not to dedicate as many resources as could be necessary to have better delivery and quicker implementation. Also, it’s been less under the spotlight than, for example, policies targeting efficiencies of buildings or transport, et cetera, because there’s no immediate impact with ecodesign... It’s a lot of cumulative gains that collectively have a massive contribution in the long term.”

Indeed, the ‘Evaluation of the Ecodesign Directive’ report, released by the Centre for Strategy & Evaluation Services and Oxford Research for the EC earlier this year, clearly stipulates that there are not sufficient resources dedicated to this policy.
The report reads: ‘The inadequacy of Commission resources for participation in implementing processes is clearly a major cause of delay and a very significant constraint on the whole ecodesign system. By way of comparison, staffing levels in the USA are in the region of 10 times the number of desk officers in the Commission. In China, there are about 70 staff and more than 40 product regulations. There is a similar disparity in terms of resources devoted to the necessary studies.’

This is confirmed by Arditi: “In the US, a preparatory study into ecodesign or energy savings would have a budget of several million dollars, but in the EU, the average budget for a preparatory study is about €300,000 [$387,000, or £242,000].”
This discrepancy in resources is not down to population size, Arditi tells me (adding that the EU has a larger population than the US), but the perceived importance in the fight against carbon emissions.

A recent report, undertaken by Ecofys and commissioned by Dutch green group Natuur en Milieu, showed that correct implementation of the EU Ecodesign Directive would not only create €90 billion (£72 billion) in savings per year for business and consumers, but also reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 400 million tonnes annually, and save nearly 20 per cent of the EU’s entire energy consumption by 2020, comparable to the savings expected of the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS).

“When you see at national level and EU level the number of people allocated to ETS, it’s much more than the number dedicated to ecodesign. What we suggest is obviously not to reduce the number of people on ETS, but to allocate more to ecodesign. Surely, if the potential savings of both systems are the same, then the resources should be more similar”, says Arditi.

The fact that the EC is ploughing resources into, ETS shows that the problem is not down to disinterest in energy savings and the environment, but a lack of awareness of the Ecodesign Directive’s potential. This, Arditi concedes, is something the EEB needs to work on.

“As we are meant to promote ecodesign, if the high level is not taking it seriously, then we obviously need to work harder.” However, he adds, the root of the problem with the Ecodesign Directive, is not a lack of awareness, but a total lack of viable and relevant information.

“We have what we call a ‘paralysis by analysis’ – because we want as much information as possible, but have no central registry for products on the market, the whole process is slowed down. In Australia, they have what they call a product registry so that each product placed on the market has its energy performance registered, which means it’s really easy to see how the market evolves and have clear evidence at a push of a button. That way they can set legislation and requirements relating to energy consumption very efficiently.

“Europe has no database of information, there’s no European level competency for market monitoring. It’s not even a mandatory competency at a national level. That means that we do not know exactly where we are in terms of markets. So, it’s difficult to adapt the ecodesign requirement to the market if we do not have adequate information that can be accessed quickly. Each time we want to set specific regulations, we’re obliged to ask consultants to look into it, which consumes a lot of resources and time.”

Arditi says that this is the primary thing that needs to be addressed with the 2014 revisions. “With no market monitoring, we really lack the instrument for proper evaluation for the implementation measures and we waste valuable time.”

Market surveillance, the evaluation of how the product put on the market complies with the requirements, is another area that needs to be better managed in the future. According to Arditi, over half of member states do not currently perform market surveillance because of its time-consuming nature (largely due to a lack of a product registry), with only four or five members states currently operating “any kind of decent surveillance”.

“Because there’s no effective market surveillance or monitoring, there’s no pressure for companies to comply or try to make as energy efficient a product as possible. There’s no naming and shaming, no sanctions, so companies still take the risk to comply at a minimum level. If you are not monitoring the products entering the market, then in effect, you are allowing people to
try and bend the rules, or at least only achieve the minimum requirements.”

Besides the lack of a comprehensive and up-to-date information system, the lack of set deadlines in the consultation process is also hindering efficient policy making, says Arditi: “Currently, because we have no clear deadlines, every time a stakeholder lodges a protest, there’s a delay as that information is considered. It’s not an effective system. Each time we postpone a decision, it’s estimated as a lost saving of about €50 million a day for European citizens.”

The most shocking example of the slow pace of the system relates to boilers and water heaters. When the directive was established in 2005, these were considered to be the key product categories to target, as they are responsible for about 25 per cent of the total emissions of Europe. However, almost eight years on, regulations on these have still not passed.

“It is simply shameful that after more than seven years’ discussion we still do not have regulation. The whole process needs to be revised. It cannot be that we take seven years to decide regulation for every category.”

It is surprising that despite the known financial and environmental benefits of resource efficiency, the Ecodesign Directive currently focuses solely on energy use. “We’d like ecodesign to also look at material and resource efficiency as this potential has not really been investigated, explored or implemented in the directive at the moment. However, we’ve got good signs that it should be integrated in the 2014 revision”, says Arditi.

“We have a huge amount of work ahead of us to get what we most want, and need.”