Watch APPLiA's fourth digital interview, here.
In the fourth of a series of APPLiA’s short digital interviews, Korrina Hegarty, APPLiA’s Environment Policy Director reported on Circular Appliances.
In the broader framework of the EU Green Deal and the Sustainable Products Initiative, the home appliance sector plays a pivotal role in supporting the transition towards a more coherent EU policy framework for a circular economy.
Home appliances are circular from the outset. What does this mean in practice? There are many different ways in which the sector contributes to delivering on circularity. “Examples of this range from the reduction of the quantity of materials and substances employed in production, relying on sustainable sources, designing for durability, repair, recycling and recovery to the increased efficiency of products during their use phase,” explained Mrs Hegarty. To this extent, APPLiA has recently launched the homonymous Circular Appliances website, a platform designed to guide visitors throughout each stage of the product’s lifecycle and showcase the achievements of the industry in enhancing sustainability.
The implementation of a coherent EU policy framework is core to this objective. To date, the current Ecodesign Directive has been successful in delivering on environmental, energy efficiency and decarbonisation targets for the products in its scope and still a lot can be achieved. For all other products, “a parallel legislation, with appropriate methodologies and inspired by good practices from the existing Ecodesign, should be considered,” commented Mrs Hegarty. And on the possible introduction of a Digital Product Passport, “it is crucial to ensure that information collected will ultimately represent an added value to both supply chain actors and consumers, on a sector by sector and product by product level,” she added.
In APPLiA’s view, policy objectives, choices and incentives across all areas should be clearly and consistently implemented to ensure continued growth.
This and much more in the APPLiA’s fourth digital interview, available at this link.