Compliance Survey: Survey of Compliance Directive 92/75/EEC (Energy Labelling)

Background:

The Framework Directive 92/75/EEC on Energy Labelling of Household Appliances has been in place for 15 years. Up to now, Implementing Directives have been adopted covering 8 household appliances: refrigerators, freezers and their combinations; washing machines, driers and their combinations; dishwashers; electric ovens; air-conditioners; household lamps. The main purpose of the Directive is to enable the harmonisation of national measures on the publication, particularly by labelling and the provision of product information, of information on the consumption of energy and other essential resources, allowing consumers to choose the most energy-efficient appliances.
Under the Directive, the retail trade is obliged to provide all the appliances displayed in salesrooms with energy labels and to list the technical data in table form in the sales records. The information necessary to do this has to be provided by the supplier of the individual appliances. For appliances which cannot be seen displayed by the potential consumer (e. g catalogue or internet offers), special labelling regulations are valid.


Objective and Approach:

There is evidence that at least for some of these appliances the labelling has had a considerable impact in persuading consumer to buy more energy efficient appliances. However, in spite of this success of the labelling, there is concern that compliance with the Energy Labelling Directive may not be fully satisfactory both at the level of the retailers and the manufacturers. A first survey of compliance with Directive 92/75 has been carried out at an early stage of the implementation of the Directive in the Member States and did not include the new Members (Winward et al. 1998). A new survey of compliance can give evidence on the present degree of compliance with Directive 92/75/EEC both at the level of retailers and manufacturers in all EU Member States.

The purpose of the proposed study is to carry out a survey of compliance with Directive 92/75 and it's implementing Directives. The survey should fulfil the following criteria:
- Coverage of all individual Member States of the EU and EEA countries (in particular Norway).
- Coverage of all 8 household products which are covered by the Labelling Directive.
- Coverage of the availability and reliability of all product information in shops and elsewhere (e. g. product brochures, mail order, Internet sales).
- Coverage of a statistically representative range of shops in each country and coverage of distance sales (mail order catalogues, internet sales).
- Analysis whether the information required by the Directives is provided correctly and if other non mandatory product information is provided. Compliance should be broken down by Member State and type of shop (including mail order and internet sales).

In addition to the survey of labelling, a survey shall be done on activities carried out by the Member States and other stakeholders (manufacturers, consumer groups) in order to ensure the accuracy of information.

Client: European Commission

Partners: Fraunhofer ISI, GfK Nuernberg

Duration: January to October 2008

Contact Person at IREES GmbH
Dr. Annette Roser
IREES GmbH
a.roser@irees.de

27.02.2008