Two European CEN/CENELEC standards being develop as part of the European Commission mandate (M/543) to enable the circular economy were published on March 1, 2019. The two standards being developed in WG6:
- EN 45558:2019 ‘General method to declare the use of critical raw materials in energy-related products’
- EN 45559:2019 ‘Methods for providing information relating to material efficiency aspects of energy-related products’
A CEN/CENELEC news brief[2] provides the following description of the standards:
EN 45558:2019 distinguishes between regulated and non-regulated CRMs and assist users (manufacturers and their suppliers) to make CRM declarations, giving the supply chain some level of certainty regarding what to report, how to report and a standardized mechanism to communicate the data throughout the supply chain. To achieve this, EN 45558 builds upon EN IEC 62474 standard on material declaration.
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EN 45559 establishes a general method, including rules and formats, for the provision of information related to the material efficiency aspects of energy-related products.
Several other circular economy standards are still under development.
CRM Communication and Regulations
The European CRM list includes 27 entries as of March 2019. The European Commission plans to impose regulatory requirements for specific CRMs on specific products; these may be included in ecodesign implementing measures.
The EN 45558:2019 standard on CRMs differentiates between regulated CRMs and non-regulated CRMS. For regulated CRMs the standard requires users to provide the CRM information in the IEC 62474 material declaration format. The CRM standard recommends that IEC 62474 is also used when non-regulated CRMs are reported. To accommodate CRM reporting, the IEC 62474:2018 is being updated by an Amendment 1 to clarify the use of alternate DSLs such as CRM lists.
When manufacturers of EEE products are required to report CRMs in the EU (such as in the upcoming ecodesign IMs), the CRMs may be added to the IEC 62474 DSL.
Impact on EEE Manufacturers
The specific CRM requirements will depend on the product type. Manufacturers should track EU regulations – especially ecodesign implementing measures – that could impose CRM reporting obligations on their products. Once a CRM reporting is identified, manufacturers will need to start requesting the information from suppliers – there will typically be at least a one-year transition period after the regulation is published. Once the CRM is added to the IEC 62474 DSL, this DSL may be used to request information.
[2] CEN/CENELEC news brief, https://www.cencenelec.eu/News/Brief_News/Pages/TN-2019-017.aspx