Zero Waste Europe commissioned the report Use of Embodied Energy as an Indicator of Product Performance in Policy from Eunomia and created a summary of this research in Embodied Energy: A Driver for the Circular Economy.
The full length report considered the potential of the following:
- An embodied energy indicator for Municipal Solid Waste (MSW);
- An embodied energy indicator applied to industrial waste streams; and,
- A product-based embodied energy indicator.
This briefing paper, composed by Zero Waste Europe’s Communications and Programme Officer Matthew Franklin answers the following questions:
- What is embodied energy and why does it matter?
- The difference between embodied energy and energy efficiency;
- Product policy in Europe;
- What can we learn from Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) Pilots?
- Could embodied energy be incorporated into the Energy Labelling Directive?
The study then makes six proposals for an embodied energy indicator.
