Making sustainable products the norm in the European Union

Yesterday, 30 March, the European Commission released new proposals aiming at making sustainable products the norm in the EU. The main objective of the package of proposals is to make “almost all   physical goods  on the EU market  more friendly to the environment, circular, and energy efficient throughout their whole lifecycle“.

The package includes:

• A Regulation on Ecodesign for Sustainable Products, which follows the same approach as the current Ecodesign Directive but enlarge its range of applicability. It aims at setting product-level requirements to promote energy efficiency, circularity and overall reduction of environmental and climate impacts. It is accompanied by an Ecodesign and Energy Labelling Working Plan for 2022-2024
• A proposal aiming at boosting the internal market for construction products and making the built environment more sustainable and fit for the 2050 climate objectives. In this respect, the long-awaited revision of the Construction Products Regulation (CPR) will have a leading role to play. The new CPR is expected to create a harmonized framework to assess and communicate the environmental and climate performance of construction products.
• A proposal on new rules to empower consumers in the green transition to make them better informed and protected against greenwashing.

Promoting circular business models and building a more sustainable built environment is also part of Glass for Europe’s vision toward 2050. Building glass and glazing products are essential contributors to sustainable buildings thanks to all properties it brings to buildings, its recyclability and overall environmental performance.

Glass for Europe will therefore analyze the new EC proposals in depth to make sure that detailed provisions do effectively support the sustainability objectives. Glass for Europe will work toward a new framework that is conducive to better collection and effective recycling of glazing into new flat glass products.

More in formation on the initiative can be found here.