EuP is a new regulation that will force designers of products to reduce the energy usage of a product over its entire life cycle, from raw material extraction from the ground all the away to disposal / recycling. Of all the environmental regulations EuP is the one that is going to have a massive impact on energy consumption of all energy using products, not just electronic products. It is another producer responsibility directive which is being phased in and implementing measures for specific product groups will be introduced over the coming years. As implementing measures are introduced they will become legal requirements and will present significant challenges for the electronics industry. The EuP requirements will be assessed as part of a products overall CE compliance, and will therefore be necessary so that a product can be sold within Europe. The Directive became law in EU Member States in August 2007 and provides a framework for setting EcoDesign requirements for any group of products which use energy (with the exception of vehicles for transport). Implementing measures are expected for the first product groups by the end of 2008.

One of the requirements of the EuP directive is that there should be no significant impact on consumers that use a product which becomes covered by the regulations. This means that the regulations will be designed to avoid significant consumer price increases and will instead attempt to leverage industry to introduce new methods and developments to reduce energy usage without increased cost. As energy usage and therefore the cost of energy will decrease, overall there should actually be a reduction in total economic cost.

EuP EcoDesign Web Site