Methods for environmental footprinting of products and services have been and are being developed all over the world. In its communication Single Market for Green Products1 (SMGP), the European Commission 2013 proposed actions to overcome problems on the internal market caused by this proliferation of initiatives. The SMGP established two methods, the Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) and the Organisation Environmental Footprint (OEF), and recommends their use by Member States, companies and others.

Since then the development of these two methods for measuring the environmental impact have been going on, with experts from allover Europe. Swedish Life Cycle Center and several partners have been active, especially Naturvårdsverket and IVL that have representatives in the European constellations.

Finally, the transition phase is reaching its end and on April 23-25 the Environmental Footprint Final Conference will be held in Brussels. The three days will contain presentations from the work as well as deeper round table discussions on technical issues, communication and policy making.

To the agenda

In connection to the launch of the SMGP, Swedish Life Cycle Center establishment an expert group for PEF/OEF methodology discussions.

Read about the Expert group

Text: Ulrika Georgsson

*Image: Elin Eriksson, IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute and Bengt Steen, Chalmers University of Technology. Photo by Swedish Life Cycle Center.