How are ESPR product priorities identified?
ESPR Article 18 directs the Commission to prioritise products by looking at their potential contribution to EU climate, environmental, and energy-efficiency objectives. The criteria include improvement potential without disproportionate costs, gaps or insufficiency in existing Union law, market-performance disparities, sales and trade volumes in the Union, value-chain impacts, energy and resource use, waste generation, and the need to adapt rules as technology and markets change.
The regulation also requires the Commission to adopt and publish a . That plan lists product groups prioritised for ecodesign requirements, estimated timelines for setting them, and product aspects or groups considered for . Product-priority status is therefore a signal that a product group is in the Commission pipeline, not a substitute for a product-specific legal act.
- Treat the as the authoritative public planning document for ESPR priorities.
- Treat JRC preparatory studies as evidence inputs, especially where they explain screening criteria, environmental relevance, policy gaps, and improvement potential.
- Treat the adopted , not a priority list alone, as the source of binding product-specific requirements.
Article 18 grounds the prioritisation criteria and the requirement for a public working plan.
Commission overview confirming that the first ESPR and Energy Labelling Working Plan was adopted after a prioritisation exercise and that product rules follow through further process.