Revised energy consumption labelling legislation enters into force tomorrow
The Act amending the energy consumption labelling legislation that was adopted in March 2012 by the two houses of the German parliament, the Bundestag and the Bundesrat, was published in the Federal Law Gazette today and enters into force tomorrow.
The Act revises the Energy Consumption Labelling Act (Energieverbrauchskennzeich-nungsgesetz, EnVKG) and amends the Energy Consumption Labelling Ordinance (Energieverbrauchskennzeichnungsverordnung, EnVKV).
It serves to transpose European legal requirements into German law and it is a further step to improve the energy efficiency in the field of products. The amendment aims to expand the successful multi-coloured efficiency scale that is used for household appliances to additional "energy-related" products. Apart from household appliances and consumer goods, these will in future also include industrial products. A second important element of this Act is the improvement of market surveillance owing to more enforcement obligations and rights at the regional level, i.e. for the Länder (including random controls).
The product-specific legal acts of the European Commission continue to be the legal basis to answer the question to which specific product groups the EU efficiency label applies. They also stipulate when the obligations for suppliers, producers and distributors of the individual product groups enter into force and which transitional provisions apply.
