Yesterday, the European Parliament’s Environment Committee adopted its first reading report on the Regulation on fluorinated greenhouse gases. The regulation should reduce the global warming potential of F gases placed on the EU market to 16 % compared to current levels by 2030. In addition, MEPs propose early phase-out dates for numerous applications.

Oliver Loebel, Managing director of PU Europe stated, “PU Europe fully supports the phase-down scenario for 2030. It sets a very ambitious target while providing long-term legal certainty and leaving substantial flexibility to industry. Early use bans for specific applications contradict this market-based approach and impose phase-outs independently from technical maturity and cost effectiveness.”

While 80-85 % of the PU thermal insulation industry moved to low GWP alternatives many years ago, certain applications still use HFCs for safety reasons or because of technological barriers. The market for these applications is dominated by SMEs offering tailor-made solutions for a wide range of customers. Thanks to their outstanding insulation performance, these products save far more greenhouse gases in their use phase than are emitted through the F gases used for their production.
PU Europe therefore welcomes the Parliament’s decision not to introduce a phase-out for PU applications before 2020. This should offer the PU industry sufficient time to develop low GWP alternatives for most of the remaining applications.

“Meeting the 2020 deadline should be feasible for larger companies, but could turn out challenging for SMEs involved in certain niche applications. We call on Member States to delay the phase-out for those businesses until 2023”, Loebel concluded.

For more details, please contact
PU Europe
Email: secretariat@pu-europe.eu Website: www.pu-europe.eu
Learn more about the benefits of polyurethane insulation at www.excellence-in-insulation.eu.