Product oriented policy support
Product oriented environmental policies (in Europe known as Integrated Product Policy – IPP) is a relatively new supplement to the toolbox of environmental regulation, with a focus on the overall pressures related to material or non-material products. Such policies seek to optimise the environmental performance of the total system of production, use and disposal processes needed to provide the products. Every human activity - and consequently its environmental impacts - can be related to a certain need and the fulfilment of this need by material or non-material products. Therefore, products play a key role in a regulation aimed at reducing the total environmental impact.
Product oriented environmental policies combine many different regulatory measures, such as economic instruments, substance bans, voluntary agreements, environmental labelling and product design guidelines. Much of the initial focus of the IPP activities has therefore been on prioritising among the different policy measures and product areas.
Examples of our policy support activities
- Prioritising the future product-oriented policy for agricultural production.
- Prioritisation within the integrated product policy - establishing a detailed and well-documented method for prioritising product areas and product groups, and applying this to products currently used or produced in Denmark, thus providing a prioritised list of product areas and product groups where Danish policy measures will provide most environmental improvement. We are currently applying the methodology to other geographical regions.
- Prioritising materials and resources whose use has the greatest environmental impacts - supporting the development of the EU resources strategy, which has very close links to the IPP.
- Networking between government programmes in the SUSPRISE programme.
- Decision support for European waste management policy.
- Environmental and ethical aspects of nanotechnologies.