EuP instruction ecological design analysis
The European Union has always attached great importance to environmental protection issues. As a pioneer in international environmental protection legislation, in the field of electronic and electrical appliances, the policy of controlling the entire life cycle of products from raw materials to final scrap has become increasingly evident. Following the WEEE and RoHS directives, the European Union officially announced the framework directive 2005/32/EC (referred to as the EuP directive) on the ecological design of energy-consuming products on July 6, 2005. As part of the integrated product strategy framework, it considers The product’s consumption of resources and energy and its impact on the environment throughout its life cycle. Since 2008, the EuP Directive implementation measures for a variety of energy-consuming products have been promulgated one after another. This year, implementation measures for a variety of products will enter the legislative process. The impact of the EuP Directive on my country's product exports will be truly reflected.
On October 28, 2008, the Shenzhen Institute of Standards and Technology hosted the TBT notification review meeting for the draft implementation measures of "Standby and shutdown power consumption of household and office electronic and electrical equipment", which formed the final review opinions representing the views of Chinese enterprises, and Submit to the European side. At present, the draft has officially become a regulation and is implemented. The standby power consumption of products involving this implementation measure in my country is generally between 1 and 5 W, while the EU requires that the first stage should reach 1~2 W and the second stage should reach 0.5~1 W. Based on the fact that my country exports 500 million units of this type of product to the EU every year, the cost increase alone will reach 2.5 to 5 billion yuan, which is quite astonishing. Therefore, how to improve the design level, reduce costs, reduce energy consumption, and meet the requirements of the EuP directive will become a top priority for my country's export enterprises.
The EU promulgated the EuP directive to create a complete regulatory framework as the basis for product environmental design, and hopes to achieve the following four main goals through this directive:
- Ensure the free circulation of EuP products within the EU;
- Improve the overall environmental performance of these products to protect the environment;
- Contribute to the stable supply of energy and enhance the competitiveness of the EU economy;
- Protect the interests of industry and consumers.
The essence of the EuP directive lies in eco-design, which focuses on designing products while considering reducing the various environmental impacts of products at each life cycle stage. According to the requirements of this directive, when designing new products, designers must integrate the product life cycle ecological design concept throughout the work, not only taking into account function, performance, materials, structure, appearance, versatility, safety, packaging, and cost. , standards, certification and other conventional factors. At the same time, the impact of the entire product life cycle on energy, environment, and natural resources must be considered. In addition, products must meet compliance requirements and obtain the CE mark before they can be produced and put on the European market. The implementation of the EuP directive will be a revolution in design thinking for most designers in our country. The EuP Directive is a framework directive and does not contain any immediate responsibilities for manufacturers. In accordance with the relevant provisions of this directive, the EU formulates further directives on product requirements, called implementing measures.
The EuP Directive first focuses on supervising the energy consumption of products; secondly, it requires companies to introduce ecological design management mechanisms; thirdly, it requires companies to prepare ecological profiles to analyze the entire life cycle of products and provide information on the product's life cycle. Input and output in the process, this not only requires the company itself to do basic surveys and statistical work, but also must put forward requirements for its own suppliers, requiring suppliers at all levels and production companies to work together to establish ecological files of products; finally, Companies are also required to be able to prove their efforts and results in product improvement, that is, conduct product life cycle assessments based on ecological archives.
Facing the challenges of the EuP directive, companies should first fully understand the relevant information. For products for which implementation measures have been introduced, relevant regulations and standard requirements should be grasped as soon as possible; for products for which implementation methods have not yet been formulated, information collection should focus on relevant standards of EU countries, Japan, and the United States. The specifications set by these standards are extremely Ecological design specifications that may become implementation methods.
Secondly, professional design talents should be introduced to learn the life cycle design concept. The EU believes that more than 80% of environmental impacts depend on the design stage of products. Integrating environmental factors into the product design stage as early as possible is the most effective way to improve and improve product quality.
Establishing a scientific quality management system to ensure that products meet the quality requirements of safety, hygiene and environmental protection is an important guarantee for responding to the EuP directive. The EuP directive requires product designers to always implement several concepts when designing products: ① The environmental design of products should be considered throughout the supply chain; ② Choose more environmentally friendly raw materials and mechanical design; ③ Reduce the complexity of product design environmental impact. Manufacturers should ensure that products are manufactured in an environment that complies with EMS/QMS (environmental management system/quality management system), so that the products meet both quality requirements and environmental protection requirements.
Due to the major changes in the design thinking of the EuP directive, its implementation will increase corporate costs in the short term, but in the long term, it will also help accelerate industrial upgrading and improve resource utilization, thereby reducing overall costs and enhancing product competition. force. Therefore, enterprises should face it proactively.
