Does product efficiency regulation in Europe lead to an energy efficient world? Examining the global energy use of our used goods exports

Panel: 7. Appliances, product policy and the ICT supply chain

This is a peer-reviewed paper.

Author:
Daniel Hinchliffe, GIZ, Germany

Abstract

It is hypothesised that as a result of used electronic goods exports to developing economies, the projected energy savings made by the Ecodesign Directive at the EU level do not immediately equate to the same savings at the global level. A significant volume of the EU’s inefficient used/obsolete products are exported after reaching the end of their useful life in the EU and after a relatively short second usage phase, these products become electronic waste and undergo particularly poor end of life treatment in developing countries. To determine whether the energy use of used exports could be significant, the annual energy use of EU stock and exported used products is simulated in the case of televisions, using a simplified stock model over the time period 2006 to 2025. This simulation is based on available data, estimates and simple projections for the annual number of exported used televisions and annual television energy use over time. The model shows that the scale of energy usage is highly dependent on the number of exported televisions and their second lifetime. Assuming the number of exported used units to average 15% and be in a range of between 5% and 25% of annual EU sales, an indicative estimate of the energy use of exported televisions is found to be 8.1% (range: 2.7% - 13.6%) of the annual energy use of EU television stock in 2013. Similarly, the annual energy use of exports is estimated to be 26.9% (range: 9.0% - 45.0%) of new EU sales energy use in 2013. Using the model results it can be deduced that Ecodesign regulations first impact the used goods market after the average EU lifetime for the televisions, taken as 9 years in this study. Full savings are expected to be achieved at the global level after the second lifetime in the developing world, assumed to be an additional 5 years in this case (i.e. 14 years total). Further positive effects of Ecodesign regulation at the global level are also discussed, while the model also indicates that the short second lifetimes of used televisions leads to significant WEEE generation in developing countries.