Improving the design of products is a pre-condition to transition towards a circular economy. As it has already been highlighted in the report released by the European Recycling Industries’ Confederation (EuRIC) named “Top 5 Priorities of the Recycling Industry for the Period 2019 -2024”, 80% of products’ environmental impact are determined at a design stage. Although the above-mentioned fact is also stated in the new Circular Economy Action Plan (CEAP), the vast majority of products placed on the EU market – and not only – are still designed without any consideration for their end-of-life stage. Design for circularity is of an outmost importance to move towards a more circular economy and needs to be extended to all products’ categories, including photovoltaic modules, inverters and systems. Improving the design of products is a pre-condition to transition towards a circular economy.

EuRIC thus fully supports the necessary ‘Environmental impact of photovoltaic modules, inverters and systems’ legislative initiative to keep the already exploited resources – used for the manufacturing of photovoltaics modules, inverters and systems – in the market for as long as possible while at the same time significantly reducing the negative environmental impact that the in-question products are generating when are not designed to support and promote sustainability.