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Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation – ESPR

The Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR), which entered into force on 18 July 2024, is the cornerstone of the Commission’s approach to more environmentally sustainable and circular products.

Products and the way we use them can have a significant impact on the environment. Consumption in the EU can therefore be a major cause of climate change and pollution.

The ESPR is part of a package of measures that are central to achieving the objectives of the 2020 Circular Economy Action Plan. They will contribute to helping the EU reach its environmental and climate goals, doubling its circularity rate of material use and to achieving its energy efficiency targets by 2030.

Objectives

The ESPR aims to significantly improve the circularity, energy performance and other environmental sustainability aspects of products placed on the EU market.

By doing so, a significant step will be taken towards better protecting our planet, fostering more sustainable business models and strengthening the overall competitiveness and resilience of the EU economy.

A sustainable product is likely to display one or more of the following characteristics:

  • Uses less energy
  • Lasts longer
  • Can be easily repaired
  • Parts can be easily disassembled and put to further use
  • Contains fewer substances of concern
  • Can be easily recycled
  • Contains more recycled content
  • Has a lower carbon and environmental footprint over its lifecycle

The ESPR replaces the current Ecodesign Directive 2009/125/EC and establishes a framework for setting ecodesign requirements on specific product groups.

It enables the setting of performance and information conditions – known as ‘ecodesign requirements’ – for almost all categories of physical goods (with some exceptions, such as food and feed, as defined in Regulation 178/2002), including to:

  • Improve product durability, reusability, upgradability and reparability
  • Make products more energy and resource-efficient
  • Address the presence of substances that inhibit circularity
  • Increase recycled content
  • Make products easier to remanufacture and recycle
  • Set rules on carbon and environmental footprints
  • Improve the availability of information on product sustainability

For groups of products that share enough common characteristics, the framework allows horizontal rules to be set.

The ESPR also contains a number of other new measures:

  • Digital Product Passport
  • Rules to address destruction of unsold consumer products
  • Green Public Procurement

More about implementation of ESPR you can find here.

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