For years, the EU has been making minimum specifications for the energy consumption of televisions, vacuum cleaners and washing machines.

The best known are still the specifications for lamps, which led to the much-lamented ban on the classic light bulb.

For the EU Commission, the Ecodesign Directive, which allows it to draw up the minimum requirements, is a great success.

There are now such specifications for 50 products.

A total of 3 billion goods are affected each year.

In this way, the EU has saved energy equivalent to that consumed by Poland, the commission calculates.

Households would have saved 120 billion euros in energy costs a year if you take the high prices of 2021 into account.

At the same time, the EU consumed 26 billion cubic meters less gas, a sixth of Russian gas imports.

Henrik Kafsack

Business correspondent in Brussels.

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From the point of view of the authority, it is therefore only logical to continue.

In the coming years, she not only wants to make further specifications for the consumption of energy products, but also extend the ecodesign rules to almost all products.

"That does not mean that we also make specific specifications for all products, but we look at all products," says the commission.

The first group includes heat pumps or charging stations for electric cars, while the second includes building products or textiles.

The FAZ had already reported on the plans at the beginning of March.

The proposed law also stipulates that the Commission will not only make specifications for the consumption of energy and resources, but also for other sustainability criteria, from repairability, durability, recyclability and the proportion of recycled primary products to hazardous ingredients such as certain chemicals and CO2 -Footprint.

Digital product pass under discussion

For example, it could develop specifications for the construction of devices so that raw materials can be easily recovered and the devices can be easily disassembled and repaired.

According to the Commission, specifications on how long a software provider must provide updates are also conceivable.

A digital product pass should provide information about the materials a product is made of and how easily it can be recycled.

The Commission also sells this as an initiative to make itself less dependent on the import of raw materials.

A key aspect is increasing the lifespan of many products.

Many products don't last as long today as they did in the past, and the Commission says there is clear evidence of this.

The Commission places a particular focus on textiles.

Textiles are ranked fourth in the list of products with the highest CO2 emissions. Only 1 percent is recycled, and every second a truckload is destroyed in waste incineration plants, the commission argues.

The trend towards "fast fashion", i.e. seldom worn, disposable textiles, exacerbates this.

The Commission therefore wants to ensure that in 2030 only high-quality, recyclable textiles that are produced under fair social conditions and without environmental pollution are sold in the EU.

High CO2 emissions from the fashion industry

“Fast fashion is out of fashion” is the goal.

To do this, she relies on reliable labels, but also export bans for used textiles and minimum quality requirements for clothing.

The Commission also wants to reduce the use of microplastics in textiles and increase their recyclability by mixing fewer different fibres.

MEP Delara Burkhardt welcomes this. "The fashion industry is responsible for as much CO2 emissions as all international flights and shipping combined," she says.

"We now have the chance to decide whether sustainable clothing will only be a lifestyle for a certain group of people, or whether it will become the norm."

The law gives the Commission enormous creative power.

The European Parliament and the EU member states can examine and reject their proposals.

Since, like the controversial proposals on the taxonomy, these are so-called delegated legal acts, the hurdle for this would be high.

The proposal also responds to criticism of the practice of companies such as Amazon or Otto of destroying returned or unsold new goods.

Initially, however, the Commission only wants to oblige the companies to provide information on how many and which products they destroy in a year.

The Commission hopes that this will prevent them from destroying new products.

If that is not enough, the draft law also allows you to ban the destruction of unsold goods, especially unsold textiles.

The extension of the ecodesign rules from energy products to all other products still has to be approved by the European Parliament and the Member States before it can come into force.

The initiative met with approval in the European Parliament as well as climate protectionists.

“Our Western lifestyle, with its endless addiction to new products and our disposable mentality, is one of the greatest threats to our society.

It is more than clear that we need to consume much less and produce much more intelligently,” says Danish Green Party Margrete Auken.