The final report of the Ecodesign Preparatory Study for Lifts was published and is awaiting decision-making by the European Commission.

Although technically possible, the study holder’s policy recommendation points out that there are several difficulties implementing an ecodesign regulation for lifts and identifies potential that the EPBD (Energy Performance of Buildings Directive) might be more appropriate to promote the energy performance of lifts.

Accordingly, the study team proposes a possible set of recommendations that are in line with ELA’s position on ecodesign regulations:

• Encourage member states to define energy efficiency targets for lifts in national transposition of the EPBD (e.g. Denmark, Portugal).
• Include lifts in the list of technical building systems of the next EPBD revision, which is deemed to be a more appropriate framework to regulate lifts.
• Mandate declaration of energy efficiency figures based on EN ISO 25745-2 (Energy performance of lifts, escalators and moving walks — Part 2: Energy calculation and classification for lifts (elevators)) under Article 11 of the ecodesign directive.
• Include energy consumption of lifts in Energy Performance Certificates (EPC’s) of buildings.
• Encourage ISO/TC 178 WG 10 (ISO technical committee for lifts, escalators and moving walks, working group energy efficiency) to rescale energy efficiency classification.

However, as the decision from the European Commission has not been taken yet, we must wait for its final stance to further assess the topic. As further step, the ELA Secretary General will touch base with the European Commission to comprehend the decision-making process and to clarify the complexities that such regulation may bring along.

Meanwhile the ELA Board accepted the proposal of initiating a collection for ecological data. The aim of this approach is to anticipate the law-making process if applicable and to support further discussions with the EU Commission to achieve appropriate decision-making when needed. The data collection is focusing mostly on data about annual standby and travel energy consumption as per EN ISO 25745-2 standard and application of design options listed in the study. The Statistical Committee will likely assist with the collection process.