The Ecodesign Directive, the Energy Labelling Directive, the Ecolabel Regulation and Green Public Procurement constitute the core legal framework defining energy and environmental requirements for a wide range of products. They are complementary: while the first one deals with minimum requirements and the second provides performance rankings, the third awards best products and the last creates a market pull for green products through public procurement. The European Commission identifies priority product groups, studies them and sets requirements when relevant.
European Aluminium strongly supports sustainable consumption policies provided that the following criteria is fulfilled:
- Product-specific legislation should always have the priority over the above multi-product ones
- No requirements should be set for intermediate products
- The methodologies applied for setting requirements should properly reflect the end-of-life recycling benefits of metals
The aluminium industry has been involved in European Commission studies dealing with window products, power cables, office buildings and food catering services .