(1)

Reliable and correct measurement and information on the environmental performance of products and organisations is an essential element in the environmental decision-making of a wide range of actors.

(2)

The Product Environmental Footprint and Organisation Environmental Footprint methods (hereafter ‘Environmental Footprint methods’) enable companies to measure and communicate their environmental performance and thereby compete on the market based on reliable environmental information. They contain detailed instructions on how to model and calculate the environmental impacts of products and organisations. The Environmental Footprint methods build on existing, internationally accepted practices, indicators and rules.

(3)

In 2013, the Commission adopted Commission Recommendation 2013/179/EU (1) to promote the use of common methods to measure and communicate the life cycle environmental performance of products and organisations. It recommends their use to Member States, companies, private organisations and the financial community, and contains two annexes establishing the proposed methods.

(4)

The Commission established a framework for developing further the Environmental Footprint methods with the participation of a wide range of stakeholders, including industry, and particularly SMEs, through a pilot phase.

(5)

In the pilot phase running from 2013 to 2018, the development of product-specific rules (Product Environmental Footprint Category Rules, PEFCRs) and sector-specific rules (Organisation Environmental Footprint Sector Rules, OEFSRs) was tested with the active participation of stakeholders, resulting in the finalisation of 19 PEFCRs and 2 OEFSRs.

(6)

The Environmental Footprint methods were also updated on several technical aspects, such as: (1) application of the materiality principle (‘act where it matters’); (2) the definition of a benchmark corresponding to the Environmental Footprint profile of the average production the market, also called representative product / organisation; (3) agreements on the modelling of key aspects concerning climate change, electricity, transport, infrastructure & equipment, packaging, end-of-life and agriculture; (4) inclusion of normalisation and weighting; (5) guidelines on how to include biodiversity as additional environmental information; (6) improvement of some impact assessment methods, with particular attention to the toxicity-related methods (human toxicity – cancer effects; human toxicity – non-cancer effects; eco-toxicity freshwater, water use, land use, resources and particulate matter); (7) defining characterisation factors based on REACH data; (8) and a guide on Environmental Footprint compliant datasets.

(7)

The results of the pilot phase were presented in the 2019 Commission Staff Working Document on ‘Sustainable Products in a Circular Economy – Towards an EU Product Policy Framework contribution to the Circular Economy’ (2). The same staff working document also indicated possible uses of the Environmental Footprint methods in policy development at EU level. Since 2019, and following a call of interest addressed to industry, the Commission continued the development of new Product Environmental Footprint Category Rules.

(8)

The Council Conclusions of October 2019 (3) welcomed the piloting of the EU Environmental Footprint methodology and all initiatives to support the communication of environmental impacts based on the Environmental Footprint pilot.

(9)

The European Green Deal (4) aims to mobilise industries for a clean and circular economy and underlines that to enable buyers to make more sustainable decisions and reduce the risk of ‘green washing’, reliable, comparable and verifiable information is needed.

(10)

In its Communication ‘A new Circular Economy Action Plan – For a cleaner and more competitive Europe’ (5), the Commission highlighted that companies should substantiate their environmental claims using Product and Organisation Environmental Footprint methods and committed to test the integration of these methods in the EU Ecolabel.

(11)

The Communication on a ‘New Consumer Agenda – Strengthening consumer resilience for sustainable recovery’ (6) indicates that to stimulate more voluntary corporate action, the Commission plans to work with economic operators to encourage their voluntary pledges to disclose to consumers the company’s environmental footprint, improve their sustainability and reduce the impact on the environment.

(12)

The Council Conclusions of December 2020 noted that the Product Environmental Footprint method has the potential of being one underlying methodology for various product policy tools in the EU and the framework for sustainable products, taking also other suitable methodologies into account.

(13)

The use of the Environmental Footprint methods is already foreseen in the context of EU policies and legislation such as the Taxonomy Regulation (7), the Sustainable Batteries Initiative (8) and the Green Consumption Pledge (9).

(14)

In the light of these developments, Commission Recommendation 2013/179/EU should be updated to integrate the technical developments of the pilot phase, in particular the development of category and sector rules, and therefore provide a sound basis for further policy development and implementation. It should facilitate companies to calculate their environmental performance based on reliable, verifiable and comparable information, and for other actors (public administrations, NGOs, business partners, for example) to have access to such information. It should also enhance the development of an EU Environmental Footprint database.

(15)

SMEs might lack the expertise and resources to address the requests for life cycle environmental performance information. Therefore, support to SMEs should be provided not only by the Commission, but also by Member States and industrial associations.

(16)

As new, internationally agreed approaches emerge, the Environmental Footprint methods are expected to be updated to integrate new indicators or modelling rules. These aspects are discussed in the Commission expert group on the Environmental Footprint Technical Advisory Board. Impacts related to biodiversity are for instance currently being considered.

(17)

As announced in the new Circular Economy Action Plan, the Commission will explore the development of a regulatory framework for certification of carbon removals based on robust and transparent carbon accounting to monitor and verify the authenticity of carbon removals. This framework will be developed in mutual synergy and consistency with the environmental footprint method and when necessary be reflected in future updates of this Recommendation.

(18)

While this recommendation focuses on environmental impacts, in the global context concerns related to economic and social impacts, including of labour practices, play an increasingly important role. The Commission will continue to closely follow these developments as well as methods of analysing environmental, social and economic supply chain impacts of products consumed in the EU that have effects along the supply chain in third countries.

(19)

This Recommendation should replace the Commission Recommendation 2013/179/EU,