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Joint Meeting of the Policy and Sustainability Taskforces
At the beginning of July, the Joint meeting of Policy and Sustainability Taskforces took place in Paris, France at the offices of UNEP DTIE. The 40 participants included members of civil society, government, international organizations and the private sector. These two important Taskforces are comprised of international experts and were formed by the en.lighten initiative to deliver policy recommendations and technical guidelines to be made available for countries and stakeholders worldwide.
The meeting agenda was comprehensive including: reviewing the en.lighten draft Toolkit for Efficient Lighting; reaching agreement on harmonized performance requirements for the replacements of incandescent lamps; providing key input for a draft Roadmap for the phase-out of inefficient lighting; sharing plans and obtaining feedback for the global roll-out and dissemination of this Roadmap.
With the Roadmap recommendations, en.lighten intends to provide a foundation to help guide national and global actions including: a suggested pace for the phase-out of obsolete technologies and the introduction of replacements; the establishment of effective policies, performance and quality harmonization; environmental and health considerations; support for national and regional initiatives; and, the development of incentives and financial mechanisms.
The draft sustainability component of the Roadmap encourages countries to adopt maximum mercury and other hazardous substances content standards in line with the world’s best practices (i.e. RoHS). The establishment of monitoring, verification and enforcement (MVE) programs for sustainability-related issues on national or regional levels was also recommended. Other proposals included; ensuring proper collection, recycling and disposal programs for lamps and a harmonized labeling approach for mercury content and environmentally sound lamp disposal.
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