Product Environmental Footprint – Further development and application

The objective of the research project was to monitor, at European level, the further development of the European Commission’s PEF pro-cess and of the PEFCRs developed within its framework, as well as of the proposed communication formats and policy options, including provision of an overview of all PEFCRs, an evaluation of and com-ments on the revised PEF / OEF method, and the participation in the implementation of a further pilot study. Equally, proposals for the ap-plications of the PEFCRs/OEFSRs submitted by the European Com-mission have to be checked and, if appropriate, own proposals are to be drawn up. To the latter, in particular the correlations with product reviews in the application contexts of ecolabels and procurement rec-ommendations are to be analyzed and assessed, where appropriate, also for a "second price tag". In addition, a theoretical and practical comparison with the previously applied methods must be made, in particular with regard to the UBA evaluation method for life cycle assessments, considering similarities and differences as well as the respective challenges. Ultimately, the PEF method will be presented to companies and business associations.