At the European Union (EU) level, no explicit environmental product policy (EPP) yet exists.

An Integrated Product Policy (IPP) has been proposed as a policy initative by the European Commission's DG Environment (originally in conjunction with DG Enterprise) with the aim of harmonising environmental product policies (EPPs) currently being developed at the EU Member State level, as well as to improve the environmental performance of products. 

It is important to make a clear distinction between IPP (Integrated Product Policy) and EPP (Environmental Product Policy). IPP is a European Commission initiative aimed at a common product-oriented environmental policy formulation at the EU level. EPP is a more general term that refers to product-oriented environmental policies inside and outside Europe. The EU Packaging Directive, the EU End-of-Life Vehicals (ELV) Directive, the proposed EU Waste from Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive, the EU eco-labelling scheme, and the funding schemes under the EU 5th Action Framework programme (e.g., “Competitive and Sustainable Growth” scheme) can be regarded as examples of the vertical elements of an IPP at the EU level. 

Most recently, the European Commission has published an IPP Green Paper (7 February, 2001). The Green Paper presents the views of the Commission on the need for and potential principles, strategies and instruments of an IPP at the EU level, as well as the potential roles of various stakeholders in the development and execution of the policy. According to the Green Paper, IPP will focus on three key issues: using economic instruments to ensure that products and services reflect their true environmental costs, using supply-side measures to stimulate businesses to produce greener products and using demand-side measures to stimulate consumers to demand greener products (see IPP Background page for a list of supply and demand side instruments).

The purpose of the Green Paper is to generate discussion, and the Commission is actively seeking comments. As part of this process, the Commission has organised an IPP workshop on 8-9 March, 2001, for stakeholders to discuss the ideas put forward in the Green Paper. However, the Commission has already accepted the need for an IPP at the European level, as well as its basic principles and objectives. The discussion the Green Paper proposes to raise is over the practical means of implementing and promoting IPP, i.e. which instruments to use and how to use them to reach the objectives.

Some EU Member States have already developed, or are developing Environmental Product Policy (EPP) frameworks. The leading countries so far are the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Austria and Germany. EPPs are also beginning to emerge in countries such as Belgium, United Kingdom, Finland and Italy. Countries such as France, Luxembourg, Spain, Portugal, Greece and Ireland seem to be lagging behind. 

On the supply-side, the leading countries have developed a number of measures to encourage eco-product development, such as product-oriented environmental management systems (POEMS), eco-design grants and awards and product take back and recycling requirements (see IPP Background for a list of supply- and demand-side tools). These countries are also developing demand-side tools, such as eco-labels, product taxes and public procurement. The most advanced are also exploring multistakeholder dialogue tools (such as Product Panels in the Denmark) to bring both sides together to work toward greener products. However, no country has yet developed a fully integrated environmental product policy that addresses the entire life cycle of products.