Sustainability legislation in the European Union is constantly evolving. Two upcoming changes are the Sustainable Product Initiative regulation and the Green Claims directive which potentially can make it easier for buyers to make responsible, more sustainable decisions. Here’s what you need to know to get the most out of the changes.
Looking at what’s happening right now, I’d like to highlight four development areas that may affect institutional purchasers of IT products.
One: sustainability is about to become mandatory
Sustainability is about to gain ground in the EU through an upcoming shift from voluntary to mandatory sustainable public procurement. It comes as a reaction to the current situation, where only a small minority of public tenders in the European Union include sustainability criteria. Policymakers see this as a missed opportunity and, faced with that observation, want to take new steps toward making it mandatory. It’s already happened in countries like Italy and France, and it’s currently being discussed at an EU level. The new Sustainable Product Initiative regulation is now a draft. If it goes through, and I’m confident it will, public purchasers will not have a choice anymore — they must include sustainability criteria in their tenders.
Two: stricter requirements for ecodesign
Another interesting aspect is the evolution of the ecodesign requirements for IT products. This focus area within the Sustainable Product Initiative will define the minimum sustainability performance that products must have if they are to be sold within the EU. Up until now, the focus has been solely on product energy efficiency but now, new areas are added, covering chemicals, product robustness and product reliability, including the software perspective. The legislation is still at a draft stage, but if or when it becomes law, all new products placed on the EU market will have to conform to it.
So, what does this new ecodesign directive mean for purchasers? As legislation moves forward, purchasers must upgrade their requirements to stay ahead and promote sustainability. In tenders that I review, I often see that the level set is that products must comply with the law. I think that is a missed opportunity because the purpose of sustainable procurement is to push the industry further than what is required by law. So from that perspective, I think the new legal requirements mean that purchasers will need to get more acquainted with the law and consequently upgrade their requirements to continue driving sustainability beyond what is legally required.
Three: new obligations for sustainability information
New obligations on sustainability information are under development to empower private consumers and institutional buyers to make more sustainable choices. Legislators want to improve the availability of information on the sustainability performance and merits of products sold on the EU market. Changes have already been made in some countries, and it’s now being discussed at an EU level.
Many hot topics are connected to this, but if I were to pick one, it would be the repairability and durability of products. We know from a sustainability perspective that using the product longer is the best thing you can do to lower the sustainability impact and of course, durability and repairability plays an important role here.
Scoring systems are now being developed in several countries and regions, such as France, where the French Repairability Index has led to a new level of interest in this issue. The next step will be a durability index, measuring how robust products are.
Four: the Green Claim demands independent verification
The new information disclosure requirements are good news but it is only the first step. To be truly effective, we need to ensure that the information can be trusted. We indeed know from our experience that sustainability information can be misleading or even incorrect, leading to high risks of greenwashing.
The Commission has started significant work on that front, and one example is the Green Claims directive. It includes a proposed set of rules to ensure that information provided to consumers or purchasers is reliable and comparable. More specifically, the Commission put forward concrete requirements for how companies should prove that the environmental claims they make about their products or services actually are correct. With the Commission’s proposal, these environmental claims must be checked by an independent and accredited verifier, to ensure that they are both relevant and credible.
I am really glad to see that the Commission understands the importance of independent verification and wants to tackle this issue. Right now, most of the sustainability claims companies make are based on self-declarations.
TCO Certified helps you meet EU directives and laws
It can surely be a challenge to keep up with all the upcoming changes. Consider using TCO Certified as a tool to save both time and resources.
1. Use TCO Certified in tenders to meet requirements for mandatory sustainable procurement. The certification includes comprehensive criteria for both social and environmental sustainability and covers the entire product life cycle.
2. To help you stay ahead of legislation, a new generation of TCO Certified is released every three years. Criteria are stricter than legislation and industry standards to challenge the IT industry and drive progress.
3. New requirements for sustainability information mean that the amount of information will increase from already high levels. TCO Certified helps you by presenting relevant information…
4. … which is verified by an independent party. This is also in line with the Green Claims directive. Independent verification of criteria compliance is always included in TCO Certified.
Barton Finn leads our support to purchasers for the Benelux region and French speaking Europe and occasionally writes for the TCO Certified Blog. Barton is passionate about sustainability, IT, procurement and Tarantino movies.
