The ICTA-UAB recommends the European Parliament to include the life cycle of the product in the Ecodesign Directive as a way to move towards a more circular economy

ICTA-UAB researcher Xavier Gabarrell presented in the European Parliament a study carried out by his research group Sostenipra on the application of the Ecodesign Directive during a session of the Committee on Environment, Public Health and Food Safety.

The study "Implementation of the Ecodesign Directive via working plans, based on the analysis of the selected product groups", is based on the fact that traditionally the application of the Ecodesign Directive has focused on the study of energy efficiency in products during their use, and stresses the need for the efficiency analysis to start in the preparation studies of the products from a life cycle perspective.

The study establishes that it would be also necessary to pay attention to the improvement of raw materials, to the product manufacturing process and end-of-life management, and considers that the Directive’s regulations should include requirements to promote their recovery, reuse, renewal, recycling and durability in order to achieve a circular economy at European level. "In products such as light bulbs, with great variability of designs, the recovery of critical raw materials is economically unfeasible," said Gabarrell during his presentation.

According to the ICTA-UAB study, ecodesign regulations should encourage recycling by making products more durable, more energy-efficient, and also by identifying materials, making the parts easier to separate and compatible with recycling, thus contributing to a more circular economy.

Gabarrell highlighted that a more detailed analysis must be carried out on certain aspects of the circular economy, such as durability, design for reuse and repair, remanufacturing and recycling of products. One possibility to ensure a systematic analysis of this issue would be to include technical assessments on these aspects at the beginning of the preparatory studies of the products in the ecodesign process.

Gabarrell concluded by stating that the Ecodesign Directive should serve as a legislative instrument allowing progress towards a more circular economy by including the entire life cycle of the product.

You can watch it online here (from 16:05)

http://web.ep.streamovations.be/index.php/event/stream/180226-1500-committee-envi