Ecodesign Breakdown in Spain: 100 companies exhibit their green products

Submitted by Alina Danieles… on 24 March 2020

Why are  more than 100 companies ecodesigning in the Spanish Basque region? Why is it expected that these companies ecodesign products to reach 7.000 milion €/year turnover by 2020?

A 20 years public-private partnership is the answer. The early adaption of EU Product and Ecodesign Policies has been key, together with an involvement of Basque multinationals, industry clusters and universities.

Ecodesign means to change busines culture, to coordinate the departments of most companies and to learn to manage complex tools. And only a longterm commitment will lead to results.

Ihobe has presented at the end of February 2020 the results of two decades of work with the industry. 1000 business experts participated in the Basque Ecodesgin Meeting 2020 and learned about the most important circular challenges. Together with the main industrial clusters in automotive (Acicae), energy (Clustener), steel (Siderex), machines (Afm), mobility (Mlc-its), food (Cluster Alimentacion), furniture (Habic), chemistry (Kimika) and construction (Eraikune), more than 50 companies have presented in 10 key sectors their ecodesign results, meaning showcasing how they increase turnover and benefits after having improved the Environmental Footprint of their products.

But it was not enough to just inform about the results. Ihobe, the Basque Governments Agency for Ecoinnovation, Ecodesign and Circular Economy decided to present these products in an exhibition, too. Over 100 companies showed 140 ecodesigned products: from windmills to electric buses, from machining tools to electric equipment like pumps and motors, from white goods, textiles to automotive components, packaging,…  All data related to these products has been validated by Ihobe and the product sheets are available here.

Slides and presentations (BEM TV) are available for free, although mostly in Spanish.

The high commitment of companies for Ecodesign and the interest shown by the market will lead Ihobe to enlarge the pool of Ecodesign Best Practices by 50% in the next months and edit them in English in order to accelerate the commitment of businesses for Ecodesign at European scale, being the most cost-effective environmental action a company can do - and Governments can support. Ihobe in fact has a rough estimation that for each Euro of public spending for eco-design implementaton there are 178 Euros additional private turnover! To be noted as well that 80% of a product's environmental impact is determined in the design phase! And this needs to be strengthened in the implementation of the new EUs Circular Economy Action Plan 2030.

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