About

The Belt project

Regulation (EU) 2017/1369 aims to promote the uptake of more efficient energy-related products, repealing Directive 2010/30/EU and the first Directive 92/75/EEC.

The EU energy label has been designed to provide consumers with accurate, recognizable and comparable information regarding energy consumption, performance and other essential characteristics of domestic household products.

It allows consumers to identify how energy efficient a product really is and how to assess a product’s potential to reduce costs related to energy consumption.

Currently, products are labelled on a scale of A+++ (most efficient) to G (least efficient). In a consumer survey, it emerged that about 85% of European citizens always look at the energy label before buying a product, however, the current one (scale from A +++ to G) is difficult to understand considering that the higher classes are densely populated. Therefore, the label is to be 'rescaled' (scale from A to G): a product showing an A+++ energy efficiency class will, for example, become a B class after rescaling, without any change in its energy consumption. The most efficient class (class A) will initially be left empty to leave room for more energy efficient models. This initiative, combined with eco-design rules, could save 200 TWh of energy annually, which is equivalent to all the energy consumed by the Baltic countries in a year.

The BELT project has the following three main goals:

• to facilitate the transition period to the new rescaled label, informing and training all principal stakeholders and market actors
• to stimulate consumers to choose better energy performing products
• to stimulate manufacturers to research and to further improve their products, thus, stimulating innovation and investment.

Expected results

Thanks to BELT, the transition process to the new rescaled label will be more easily performed providing training and technical guidance to manufacturers, distributors and retailers. Confusion and errors among consumers and public and business procurement staff will be avoided through clear, bespoke and targeted communication campaigns.

BELT will create targeted communication campaigns for all stakeholders, it will organise workshops and events and it will develop training activities.The excellence of BELT stems from its multidisciplinary expertise and geographical coverage, being able to reach 20 million European stakeholders and 4.400 market actors.