The Swedish Forest Industries Federation (SFIF) welcomes the EU Parliament’s approval of the proposed Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR), and in particular the inclusion of aspects of the use and content of renewable materials. The initiative to establish ecodesign requirements for sustainable products is an ambitious one and is set to play a key role in ensuring that products placed on the European market contribute to achieving the goal of climate neutrality by 2050.
The SFIF regards the acknowledgment that renewable materials make a vital contribution to sustainable products as extremely positive. It is crucial to incentivise the manufacture and use of products made from renewable resources. This would facilitate and accelerate the shift from today’s linear, fossil-based economy to a circular, bio-based one.
The ESPR is a follow up to the Circular Economy Action Plan (CEAP). It broadens the scope of the current Ecodesign Directive regarding requirements and range of products. The main objective of the ESPR is to reduce the negative lifecycle environmental impacts on virtually all products and improve the function of the Single Market.
The proposals establish a framework to set ecodesign requirements for specific product groups to significantly improve their circularity, energy performance and other environmental sustainability aspects, such as product durability, reusability, upgradability and reparability, presence of substances that inhibit circularity, energy and resource efficiency, recycled content, remanufacturing and recycling, carbon and environmental footprints.
The Parliament will now start the trialogue negotiations.
