The European Commission is considering policy options for a range of energy-consuming and energy-related products, including imaging equipment such as DVD players and VCRs, projectors, and video game consoles.
The EU has commissioned the UK-based consulting firm AEA to conduct a study on imaging equipment categories, and they are currently assessing the opinions of industry professionals.
The EcoDesign Directive (2009/125/EC) is a general directive, meaning that binding ecodesign regulations are established through implementation measures for each product group. The directive itself only specifies the conditions and criteria for how to develop implementation measures for various energy-consuming and energy-related products. If the industry does not have its own regulatory plan, the EU will consider developing implementation measures.
The European Commission believes that energy efficiency is an area where voluntary regulatory schemes in the industry are particularly effective. The industry has already implemented three voluntary regulatory schemes: the first covers the energy consumption of televisions, VCRs and DVD players in standby mode; the second concerns household washing machines; and the third concerns refrigerators and freezers.
In addition to considering the standby energy consumption of DVD players and VCRs, projectors, and video game consoles, the European Commission must also explore other environmentally friendly design elements for these products, such as market characteristics, potential for technological or economic improvement, existing relevant laws, industry self-regulation standards, and whether standards need to be established.
The European Commission will use the information obtained from the research to assess the impact of the policy proposals and draft a consultation paper. No decision has yet been made on whether further voluntary regulatory agreements or binding measures are needed for the aforementioned product categories.
At the third industry meeting held in Brussels on June 14, 2010, participants made recommendations regarding projectors, including establishing energy efficiency thresholds for idle and active states, covering school projectors, office projectors, and home theater projectors. Participants suggested that the "automatic power-off" function should continue to be a default feature for all types of projectors and discussed testing methods for energy efficiency regulations, as well as the environmental impact of projectors.
The results of the meeting will supplement the aforementioned investigation. The investigation is expected to be completed in September 2010 and then submitted to the European Commission.
–Source: UNCTAD.org
