Why coolproducts

The products we use in our every day life - from computers to TVs, and boilers to warm our homes - consume a lot of energy and have impacts on the environment. Boilers and water heaters alone are responsible for the same amount of greenhouse gas emissions as the whole of the transport sector! Forcing manufacturers to make these products greener is absolutely essential if we want to save the climate and the environment, and decrease energy bills. We also need to improve their recyclability and get rid of the toxic chemicals some of them contain.

Many consumers are already trying to do their bit by looking for more energy and ecologically efficient products on the market. But it is still difficult and many of us are also confused. The wide choice available, the lack of regulation to remove polluting products from the market, and the lack of reliable information all make it hard to figure out what to buy.

Good News

But here’s the potential good news. The European Union and its 27 Member States - representing a market of almost 500 million people - are jointly working on setting minimum ecological requirements for products. Under rules set by the 2005 Framework Directive on Ecodesign of Energy Using Products, only products that perform above a certain minimum energy efficiency requirement, as well as other environmental impacts when relevant, will be allowed on the market in the coming years. If the minimum requirements will be ambitious, this will be a huge improvement.

Ideally, when European consumers visit shops in the next few years, they can be confident that the products on sale are green enough and will lead to substantial savings on their monthly energy bills. For instance, through ambitious requirements for water heaters and boilers the EU could cut CO2 emissions drastically and slash bills by around €44 billion a year.

Bad News

There is however, a catch. There are a lot of powerful industry lobbies which have an interest in stopping these 27 countries from making good environmentally sound choices. Manufacturers of some products are persistently lobbying EU member countries and European institutions in order to slow down or weaken the process.

Aim of Coolproducts 

The Coolproducts for a Cool Planet website aims to inform people, in an engaging and non-technical way, about what is going on behind the scenes. This is important because this policy will transform the products we use and change our lives for the better. We need to understand what is happening, and why and stop unjustified attempts by powerful vested interests to slow things down.

We will attempt to explain how these decisions are taken, using every day language. We will try to avoid jargon as much as possible.