(09 April 2013) – The European Commission is proposing EU-wide methods to measure the environmental performance of products and organisations, and encouraging Member States and the private sector to take them up.
The proposal
puts forward two methods to measure environmental performance throughout the lifecycle, the Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) and the Organisation Environmental Footprint (OEF);
recommends the voluntary use of these methods to Member States, companies, private organisations and the financial community;
announces a three-year testing period to develop product- and sector-specific rules through a multi-stakeholder process, including provision for organisations with other methods to have them assessed as well;
provides principles for communicating environmental performance, such as transparency, reliability, completeness, comparability and clarity;
supports international efforts towards more coordination in methodological development and data availability.
The three-year testing period is expected to be launched soon after the adoption of the Communication. An open call for volunteers will be published by the Commission on the web portals for the Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) and the Organisation Environmental Footprint (OEF), inviting companies, industrial and stakeholder organisations in the EU and beyond to participate in the development of product-group specific and sector-specific rules.