Procedure for the development and revision of GPP criteria

1. Standard procedure for development and revision of EU GPP criteria

A. Documents to be drawn up

(All documents are going to be available on the Commission's dedicated websites (EU GPP, IPTS/JRC) during the development of the criteria.)

a) Preliminary Report

One Preliminary Report both for EU Ecolabel and EU GPP will be drawn up.

The Preliminary Report contains:
Quantitative indication of the potential environmental benefits related to the product group.
Reasoning for the choice and scope of the product group.
Analysis of other environmental labels’ criteria.
Current laws and ongoing legislative initiatives related to the product group sector.
Analysis of the possibilities of substitution of hazardous substances by safer substances.
Intra-community market data for the sector, including volumes and turnover.
Estimation of the public procurement market.
Preliminary public procurement expenditure, evaluation of the costs to public procurers and demonstration of ways for calculating the costs on a life-cycle cost basis.
Extent and overall relevance of the environmental impacts associated with the product group, based on new or existing life cycle assessment studies.
References of data and information collected and used for issuing the report.

b) Technical Report

The Technical Report includes:

Issues relating to verifying compliance with environmental demands.
The scientific explanations of each requirement and criterion.
A quantitative indication of the overall environmental performance that the criteria are expected to achieve in their totality, when compared to that of the average products/services/works.
An estimation of the expected environmental/economic/social impacts of the criteria as a whole.

c) EU GPP criteria

The EU GPP criteria will:

Take into consideration the net environmental balance between the environmental benefits and burdens, including health and safety aspects.
Be based on the most significant environmental impacts of the product, be expressed as far as reasonably possible via technical key environmental performance indicators of the product, and be easily verifiable.
Be based on sound data and information, representative as far as possible of the entire EU market.
Be based on life cycle data and quantitative environmental impacts, where applicable in compliance with the European Reference Life Cycle Data Systems (ELCD).
Take into consideration the views of all interested parties involved in the consultation process.
Guarantee harmonisation with existing legislation applicable to the product group when considering definitions, test methods and technical and administrative documentation.
Take into account relevant EU policies and work done on other related product groups.
Be easy to use, with simple and complete requirements.
Take into account different stages of the tendering procedure.
Be broken down into "core" and "comprehensive" GPP criteria.
Clearly identify the verification method.
Have to be fully compliant with EU public procurement legislation, in particular with Directives 2004/17/EC and 2004/18/EC.

d) Final Report

The Final Report includes:

A summary list of all documents circulated in the course of the criteria development work.
A list of the interested parties involved in the work or which have been consulted or have expressed an opinion, together with their contact information.
An executive summary.

B. Criteria Development Process

a) External consultation

Two working group meetings will be held that are open to all interested parties.

At the first meeting, the preliminary report, a draft of the technical report and draft criteria areas will be discussed. The emphasis of this meeting will be on the development of EU Ecolabel criteria which serve as a basis for EU GPP criteria.

The second open working group meeting will be held on two days. On the first day, the EU Ecolabel criteria will be discussed, while the second day will focus on EU GPP criteria only.

The documents will be made available on the Commission's dedicated websites (EU GPP, IPTS/JRC) at least one month before the meeting. Comments received online or in the working group meetings will be taken into consideration for the revision of the documents.

Responses shall be given to all comments received during the external consultation period, indicating whether each comment is accepted or rejected and why.

b) Consultation of the GPP Advisory Group

Following the external consultation, a proposal for EU GPP Criteria will be submitted to the informal EU GPP Advisory Group for comments.

c) Adoption and publication

Finally, following an inter-service consultation within the Commission, the EU GPP criteria and the Technical Report will be adopted by the Commission and published as a staff working document on the EU GPP website.

2. Shortened procedure

A shortened procedure can be applied,

- for existing criteria: when a non-substantial revision (e.g. change of legislation or policy, new technical data, new ecolabels) is necessary;

- for the development of new criteria: when the scientific base is already well established, e.g. through existing ecolabels, eco-design requirements, best-available techniques and national GPP criteria.

Under the shortened procedure, a technical background report (including the content of the preliminary report and of the technical report) and the proposal for draft EU GPP criteria have to be made available for external consultation on the Commission's website for a period of two months for comments.

Responses shall be given to all comments received during the external consultation period, indicating whether each comment is accepted or rejected and why.

Following this, the Commission can directly go to the EU GPP Advisory Group with the proposal for EU GPP criteria and the Technical Report and seek for the opinion of the group.

3. Development of EU GPP criteria led by Member States or stakeholders

The EU GPP criteria development process can also be led by Member States or stakeholders. The Member State or the stakeholder must demonstrate expertise in the product area, the ability to lead the process with neutrality and obtain the Commission's approval for EU GPP criteria development.