RREUSE feedback on the Sustainable Products Initiative

RREUSE welcomes the revision of the Ecodesign Directive through the Sustainable Products Initiative (SPI) as a major opportunity to enhance product sustainability and to pave the way for a transition towards sustainability within European markets. We strongly defend the need to take eco-design seriously across all products placed on the European market. In this regard, the SPI should keep an inclusive vision of the products to tackle and include not only energy using and related products but also broader categories of products such as textiles and furniture.

We particularly recognize and appreciate the following initiative’s outcomes: implementing eco-design and information requirements to improve products’ sustainability, promoting the right to repair, and exploring new circular business models.

However, the initiative should introduce strong and clear targets in order to be effective. Action on eco-design must be combined with enhancing options for re-use and repair that ultimately lead to reduced consumption of products and materials. Eco-design alone will not solve our unsustainable consumption levels. This is why both the information and eco-design requirements should lead not only to a more sustainable production of goods, but to a concrete phase-out of unsustainable products.

Therefore, we would like to address several elements that seem to be lacking in the actual regulation but are necessary to adopt ambitious policies.