Ecodesign Impact Assessments

The project consortium supports the Commission in carrying out an objective and impartial assessment of the impact of various technical and political options. The impact assessment studies for product groups under the Ecodesign Framework Directive will assess the economic, environmental and social impact of different policy options for the implementation or attainment of specific and general ecodesign requirements or energy labelling requirements.

The indicative policy options for the product groups to be analysed are:

• Business as Usual (i.e. no new implementing measure or revision of an existing measure);
• the introduction of mandatory specific/generic ecodesign requirements for products, including, where appropriate, possible interactions with relevant Community and/or third country legislation;
• complementary or alternative policies such as energy labelling (mandatory/voluntary);
• self-regulation.

The criteria for the analysis are:

1. Effectiveness – analysis of how successful the EU's actions have been in achieving their objectives;
2. Efficiency – taking into account the relationship between the resources used by an intervention and the changes brought about by the intervention (which can be positive or negative);
3. Relevance – study of the link between the needs and problems of society and the objectives of the intervention.