The European Commission intends to announce a package of measures next month to stimulate sustainable industrial development across the EU. The proposals would set framework conditions needed to eliminate market failures and deal with environmental externalities, Didier Herbert, head of the sustainable industrial policy unit of the Commission told a conference organised by the UK's Environmental Industries Commission in London today.
The European Commission intends to announce a package of measures next month to stimulate sustainable industrial development across the EU.
The proposals would set framework conditions needed to eliminate market failures and deal with environmental externalities, Didier Herbert, head of the sustainable industrial policy unit of the Commission told a conference organised by the UK's Environmental Industries Commission in London today.
But, he added, they would aim to avoid prescriptive measures and to minimise any additional 'red tape'.
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The measures would have three main aims, he said: to help bring better products to market; to promote the EU's fast-growing 'eco-industries'; and to ensure the EU's energy-intensive industries remain competitive with their overseas rivals.
At present, he noted, there are several pieces of EU legislation that aim to foster energy-efficient or environmentally friendly products, but an integrated approach is now needed. The new proposals will set ambitious voluntary performance standards and include incentives to reward the best products. Incentives could include public procurement policies, he suggested.
Among the sectors classed as 'eco-industries', Herbert cited waste management, renewable energy, environmental consulting, environmentally friendly construction, and air pollution control. Together, such industries employ 3.4 million across the EU and their turnover represents 2.2% of the bloc's GDP. It is already bigger than the pharmaceutical sector, he noted, yet it is "not yet on the radar screen of the policy-makers". The new measures would try to identify obstacles facing the sector – in terms of internal market barriers or access to finance, for example – and set framework conditions to overcome them.
In terms of the EU's climate change policies, Herbert said it was essential that these were matched by measures to preserve Europe's industrial competitiveness. He acknowledged industry fears that the EU's mandatory Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) might affect its ability to compete against companies outside the region that face no such constraints on their emissions.
He said voluntary agreements on emissions targets within particular global industry sectors could have a role to play and the Commission would examine how such sectoral agreements might be linked to the EU ETS. He noted that the Commission would report on the risks of 'carbon leakage' – industrial emissions being displaced out of the EU because of the ETS – by 2011. In the light of this review, it would then review the level of emission allocations and, perhaps, introduce measures "to neutralise any distortive effects". But, he stressed that emission reduction commitments for energy-intensive industries would stay.
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