Part of the EU's commitment to the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, the long-awaited Integrated Product Policy (IPP) programme will seek to push manufacturers into making greener products with a two-pronged approach.
First, the Commission aims to improve existing environmental measures covering products and provide additional measures where needed. Secondly, the Commission will target for specific action those products with the greatest potential for environmental improvement.
The new programme will look at the whole life cycle of products with the intention of “greening” as many different products and services as possible. This will include cutting down on waste produced in the manufacturing in terms of materials, water, chemicals and energy and improving the disposal process once a product has come to the end of its useful life.
Commenting on the new IPP, environment commissioner Margot Wallstrom said: “IPP will look at all the stages of a product's life cycle from cradle to grave and seek to reduce the overall environmental damage it causes at the different stages. The gains that can be made by making just small changes are huge.”
Attempting to be as flexible as possible to the needs of industry as well as the environment, the “re-oriented” EU policy contains “no commitment” to any new legislation, but the Commission admits new legislation could result “when the market fails and where we need to protect human health and particularly vulnerable environments”.
Involvement
But with the number and type of products as variable as they are, the Commission said it will avoid over-regulation, particularly as it wants a high involvement of businesses in the programme.
Ms Wallstrom said: “In a competitive business world, environmental performance can be a factor giving companies or their products a competitive edge. We are today calling on business to participate on a voluntary basis in a pilot project exercise to bring IPP to life and show the practical benefits of such an approach.”
The Commission stressed that IPP is “not attempting to reduce consumption; rather, it is seeking to reduce the environmental impact of increased consumption”.
A timetable has been laid out for IPP, but aside from discussions, studies, surveys and meetings, little significant action is to be taken before 2007.
Stakeholder suggestions for products suitable for life cycle assessment (LCA) will be taken until October 2003, with the publication of a practical handbook on LCA in 2005. From that year, a discussion document will be produced concerning the need for product design obligations on producers. In 2007, the identification of a first set of products with the greatest potential for environmental improvement will lead to the first real action in this area.
Active
But 'industrial ecology' consultant Dr Stuart McLanaghan urged UK organisations not to hold off on getting involved in IPP. He said: “Traditionally, the UK has often adopted a more reactive approach to the development of EU policy. This is an area in which we cannot afford to comment upon from the sidelines, we must play a full and active role in driving forward this key principle of sustainable development.”
The slow process and lack of commitment to any legislative measures to force manufacturers to become more environmental drew the wrath of the European Environmental Bureau.
Melissa Shinn, ecological product policy officer for the federation of European environmental citizens' organisations said: “Does it have to take 10 years from the start of IPP studies and discussions in 1997 to 2007 to realise what is necessary? Whilst the Commission commits to ‘establishing framework conditions for the continuous environmental improvement of all products’, it proposes no initiatives that will in fact achieve this.”
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