Overview
The Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR), which entered into force on 18 July 2024, is the cornerstone of the Commission’s approach to more environmentally sustainable and circular products.
Products and the way we use them can have a significant impact on the environment. Consumption in the EU can therefore be a major cause of climate change and pollution.
The ESPR is part of a package of measures that are central to achieving the objectives of the 2020 Circular Economy Action Plan. They will contribute to helping the EU reach its environmental and climate goals, doubling its circularity rate of material use and to achieving its energy efficiency targets by 2030.
Objectives
The ESPR aims to significantly improve the circularity, energy performance and other environmental sustainability aspects of products placed on the EU market.
By doing so, a significant step will be taken towards better protecting our planet, fostering more sustainable business models and strengthening the overall competitiveness and resilience of the EU economy.
A sustainable product is likely to display one or more of the following characteristics:-
- Uses less energy
- Lasts longer
- Can be easily repaired
- Parts can be easily disassembled and put to further use
- Contains fewer substances of concern
- Can be easily recycled
- Contains more recycled content
- Has a lower carbon and environmental footprint over its lifecycle
Law
The ESPR replaces the current Ecodesign Directive 2009/125/EC and establishes a framework for setting ecodesign requirements on specific product groups.
It enables the setting of performance and information conditions – known as ‘ecodesign requirements’ – for almost all categories of physical goods (with some exceptions, such as food and feed, as defined in Regulation 178/2002), including to:-
- Improve product durability, reusability, upgradability and reparability
- Make products more energy and resource-efficient
- Address the presence of substances that inhibit circularity
- Increase recycled content
- Make products easier to remanufacture and recycle
- Set rules on carbon and environmental footprints
- Improve the availability of information on product sustainability
For groups of products that share enough common characteristics, the framework allows horizontal rules to be set.
The ESPR also contains a number of other new measures:-
The ESPR will introduce a Digital Product Passport (DPP), a digital identity card for products, components, and materials, which will store relevant information to support products’ sustainability, promote their circularity and strengthen legal compliance.
This information will be accessible electronically, making it easier for consumers, manufacturers, and authorities to make more informed decisions related to sustainability, circularity and regulatory compliance. It will allow custom authorities to perform automatic checks on the existence and authenticity of the DPPs of imported products.
Information to be included in the DPP will be identified by the Commission, in close consultation with all relevant stakeholders, and will depend on the specific product in question. This information can include:
- Product’s technical performance
- Materials and their origins
- Repair activities
- Recycling capabilities
- Lifecycle environmental impacts
Many unsold products in the EU are simply destroyed, a practice that wastes valuable resources. For the first time in the EU, the ESPR introduces measures to address this practice, by introducing a ban on the destruction of unsold textiles and footwear, and opening the way for similar bans in other sectors, if evidence shows they are needed.
It will require large and eventually medium-sized companies across all product sectors to disclose annual information on their website, such as the number and weight of products they discard, as well as their reasons for doing so.
Public authorities in the EU spend around €1.8 trillion purchasing works, goods and services.
The ESPR will help steer these funds in a more sustainable direction, by enabling mandatory Green Public Procurement criteria to be set for EU authorities who purchase the products that it will regulate.
This has the potential to significantly boost demand for sustainable products, in turn, further incentivising companies to invest in this area.
Implementation
The ESPR is a framework legislation, meaning concrete product rules will be decided progressively over time, on a product-by-product basis, or horizontally, on the basis of groups of products with similar characteristics.
The process will begin with a prioritisation exercise, followed by publication of a working plan sets out the products and measures to be addressed under the ESPR over a given time period. Development of product rules will then start, based on inclusive planning, detailed impact assessments and regular stakeholder consultation. This will happen through an Ecodesign Forum.
- 18 July 2024New Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation enters into force
- 5 December 2023Commission welcomes provisional agreement for more sustainable, repairable and circular products
- 30 March 2022Adoption ESPR proposal (as part of Sustainable Products Initiative)
- 14 September 2020–22 June 2022Public consultation and roadmap (Sustainable Products Initiative)
- 11 December 2019Adoption European Green Deal
Watch the online information session on ESPR from 22 May 2024
Main law
New Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (2024)
Documents
Press material 30 March 2022 – ‘Making sustainable products the norm’
Executive Summary of the ESPR Impact Assessment
Ecodesign Working Plan 2022-2024
Ecodesign Working Plan 2016-2019
Rules and requirements for energy labelling and ecodesign
Preliminary JRC Study on New Product Priorities
Consultations
2020 Public Consultation and Roadmap on the Sustainable Products Initiative
Studies
Study to support the sustainable products initiative
2023 public Consultation on New product priorities for Ecodesign for Sustainable Products
Videos
12 June 2023 "Webinar on Digital Product Passport standardisation"
05 April 2023 ‘’Webinar with Member States experts on setting Ecodesign requirements in ESPR’’
Related strategies
Circular Economy Action Plan, Energy Label and Ecodesign, Sustainable and Circular Textiles