Both companies and consumers face problems in understanding the green products brought to market. There is a variety of competing environmental assessment methods for companies to use, but their methods are not comparable and often vary across EU member states. In addition, consumers find environmental labelling rather unclear or feel the information provided is insufficient. To stimulate the reliability of methods and increase the confidence consumers have in green products, the European Commission launched the Single Market for Green Products inititative, through which it proposed the Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) and Organisation Environmental Footprint (OEF), which it developed in a pilot phase from 2013 to 2018.

While opening consultations on how to use the PEF and OEM in policies such as the product policy framework, the European Commission will host a product environmental footprint information event on the back of the 2019 Circular Economy Stakeholder Conference to introduce these methods and their develpoment to a wider audience.

This workshop, to be held on 7 March from 14:15 to 17:00 in the European Commission's Breydel building, will introduce participants to the meaning of the environmental footprint, the development of these assessment methods and their implications for policy before showing how the PEF can help companies grow, the results obtained from applying the method can support decision-making process and how companies can be engaged in developing this environmental standard.

Registration and further practical information is available here.