MARCH 2025

Dear ECOS subscriber,

We have released our Annual Report for 2024, a summary of the impact and progress we made last year across our network. A network that continues to grow - as we also welcome two new members this month.

We also have two publications to share this month, one offering a framework to reduce the negative impacts of an unfair and unsustainable textile sector, and another showing the way to decarbonise heating and cooling within five years. All this and more in our March newsletter!

What is our impact? Annual Report 2024

It was a challenging year in many ways – but 2024 was still full of important milestones and steps forward for ambitious environmental protection! Take a look back with our annual report, celebrating achievements across our network, as we continue our collective journey towards sustainability.

Less is more: Taking a sufficiency approach in EU textiles policy

The textiles industry is too big to be sustainable. In our report we unpick the unsustainable and unfair status quo and reimagine a sector that uses fewer resources but promotes more creativity and collaboration, ensuring dignity and social justice for all.

How to decarbonise heating and cooling by 2030

Discover the path to renewable, healthy, and efficient buildings in the EU in our new factsheet. Learn about the many heating and cooling solutions that are already available and the EU policy toolbox that can help get them into every building.

European NGOs urge reusable packaging adoption for PPWR compliance

Rethink Plastic Alliance members are encouraging EU governments to adopt reusable packaging to reduce waste and ensure regulatory compliance. Packaging Insights discuss the newly released roadmap with ECOS. 

Never beyond repair - How an EU standard drives product repairability 

Online | 3 April, 11:00 CEST

ECOS and ANEC invite our members and partners interested in ecodesign and energy labelling to join us on for an online workshop on the standardisation of repairability, as part of the reaLIFEstandards project.

Making repair affordable: How to tackle the price of spare parts

Online | 16 April, 15:00 CEST

Expensive spare parts can be a barrier to repair, but there’s a solution: horizontal ecodesign measures. Speakers will join from ECOS, the Right to Repair Europe coalition, the European Commission, and industry.

• Compensation method for heat pumps
• Recommendations on criteria and future development of the EU taxonomy
• Zero tolerance for harmful chemicals in children’s products
  
• Securing robust Environmental Product Declarations for construction materials

Polymers can act as a trojan horse for toxic chemicals

“To escape regulation, flame retardant and PFAS producers are increasingly pivoting to polymers” said Arlene Blum, Executive Director of Green Science Policy Institute and co-author of a new study which suggests that polymers may not be safe alternatives after all.

Welcome to our new members!

Get to know two of our latest members with a short Q&A:

Earthworks focus on preventing the destructive impacts of oil, gas, and mineral extraction in the USA. They also work internationally to hold the mining industry to account.

Based in Nigeria, Pan African Vision for the Environment (PAVE) is working regionally and internationally to fight climate change and achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.

A roadmap for national & local governments to slash record levels of packaging waste

Despite its shortcomings, the EU’s new packaging rules provide many tools that Member States can leverage to reduce packaging waste – learn how in a new report from the Rethink Plastic alliance.

You can’t manage what you don’t measure

1 April, Online

Our Acting Sustainability Director, Valeria Botta, will discuss the European Environment Agency’s new set of metrics to monitor environmental performance and circularity uptake in the textiles sector.

Energy Efficiency Policy Training (IEA)

10 April, Paris

Say hello to Head of Energy Transition Rita Tedesco, at this International Energy Agency event, where she will discuss the importance of NGO participation in policy and standardisation of appliances - using real examples where we have made a difference.

International Slag Valorisation Symposium

11 April, KU Leuven

Cement and concrete standards pose major barriers to a clean and competitive cement & steel industry in Europe. Speaking at KU Leuven, Senior Programme Manager Joren Verschaeve will explain how the challenge ahead is not technological, but regulatory.