Brussels, 22 April 2024
On Monday, the Commission has adopted guiding criteria and principles for what would constitute ‘essential uses’ of the most harmful chemicals.
The Communication adopted today gives industry and investors predictability regarding the manufacturing of products indispensable for the green and digital transition, health and defence in the EU. It is a concrete deliverable of the Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability aiming to improve the protection of human health and the environment from the most harmful chemicals, and to move towards a toxic-free environment.
Communication on essential uses
The concept of ‘essential uses’ helps assess when it is justified, from a societal point of view, to use the most harmful substances. In cases where the use is necessary for health and/or safety, and/or it is critical for the functioning of society, and if there are no acceptable alternatives, this substance can continue to be used for that purpose for a certain period of time. Detailed provisions should be set in specific EU legislation applying the essential use concept.
The overall aim of this concept is to achieve higher regulatory efficiency and predictability for authorities, investors and industry for a faster phase-out of the most harmful substances in non-essential uses, while allowing more time for the phase-out of uses that are essential for society. It will also help industry to steer and prioritise investments in innovative and sustainable chemicals.
For uses deemed essential for society, the concept can give companies certainty that substances used in critical applications – notably for the green and digital transition, but also security and defence – can continue to be used until alternatives are available.
This concept can also provide incentives under voluntary schemes, such as sustainable finance and in research and innovation, promoting and facilitating the shift towards safer and more sustainable products and methods.
Transition to safe and sustainable chemicals: report from the EEA
To support the transition to safe and sustainable chemicals, the European Environment Agency (EEA) and the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) published on 17 April, an indicator framework to assess the drivers and impact of chemical pollution. The report found that while the transition is progressing in some areas, it is just beginning in others. The benchmarking found that more work is still needed to reduce the impact of harmful substances on human health and the environment and provides recommendations for future actions.
Background
Today’s Communication is an important deliverable of the Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability. The strategy sets out actions to make chemicals safe and sustainable by design and to ensure that chemicals do not harm the planet for current and future generations, as well as helping foster innovation for safe and sustainable chemicals. This includes prohibiting the use of the most harmful chemicals in consumer products such as childcare articles, food contact materials and textiles, unless these uses are proven essential for society, and ensuring that all chemicals are used more safely and sustainably.
Several innovation and investment actions have been established to accompany the affected industries through this transition. To promote safe and sustainable chemicals and clean production processes, 12,000 projects ran between March 2021 and September 2022 under Horizon Europe, Digital Europe, ERASMUS+, Innovation Fund and the LIFE programme. Over € 1 billion were dedicated to 190 research and innovation projects.
The strategy also draws the attention of Member States to the possibilities of the Recovery and Resilience Facility to invest in the green and digital transition of EU industries, including in the chemical sector. Similarly, the ‘Transition Pathway for the Chemicals Industry‘ (published in 2023) proposes actions and conditions to achieve the green and digital transition and improve resilience in the chemical industry.
More information
Communication on essential use
Joint EEA-ECHA synthesis report on the EU indicator framework for chemicals,
Chemicals strategy for sustainability Recovery and Resilience Facility
Quote(s)
Essential use is yet another tool in our toolbox that can allow us to act faster in eliminating the most harmful chemicals to protect our health and the environment. By adopting criteria and principles that define which uses of harmful chemicals are essential for society, we provide certainty to the industry and investors, but we also send a strong signal that there is no place for harmful chemicals, if they are not essential for society. Safer and more sustainable alternatives exist, they shall now become the norm.
EU Commission Q&A on essential use chemicals
1. Why did the Commission develop the essential use concept?
Chemicals are the building blocks of everything we see around us. Manufactured chemicals are at the heart of most consumer products as well as Europe’s major value chains, such as electronics, transport, including batteries for electric vehicles, but also construction materials, and more.
At the same time, exposure to harmful chemicals may lead to severe chronic health effects, long-term environmental impacts and contamination of our food and water resources. All this results in high costs to society, for example for health care and pollution remediation.
One of the main goals of the Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability is to increase the level of protection and prevent harm to humans and the environment, in particular by phasing out the most harmful substances, while providing incentives to invest into safer and more innovative solutions.
As part of the Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability, the Commission has committed to develop an essential use concept in order to ensure that the most harmful chemicals are only allowed if their use is essential for society.
The aim of the concept is to increase the protection of health and environment by accelerating the phase-out of the uses of the most harmful substance that are non-essential and, where they are essential, to provide time for their substitution in a manner predictable to market operators.
2. What are essential uses?
In today’s Communication, the Commission defined that a use of a most harmful substance is essential only if the following criteria are met:
- its use is necessary for health or safety or is critical for the functioning of society
and
- there are no acceptable alternatives.
These criteria are cumulative. Thus, for a use to be essential, both criteria must be met. They also provide for flexibility to consider specificities and existing definitions in pieces of EU legislation where the concept could be integrated and applied.
The concept of essential use brought by this Communication will only have legal effect when introduced into specific legislation. So far, no EU legislation contains a legal definition of essential uses of substances.
3. What is the scope of the essential use concept?
The essential use concept can be used in specific EU legislation to determine when a use of a most harmful chemical is essential for society. In other words, when it is justified – from a societal point of view – to use most harmful substances.
The essential use concept is about specific uses of certain chemicals. The use of a substance may be essential in one product or context, but not in another. In addition, not all uses may be essential within a sector.
4. Which chemicals are considered ‘the most harmful chemicals’?
The most harmful chemicals listed in the Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability are substances that cause cancers, gene mutations, affect the reproductive or the endocrine system, or are persistent and bio-accumulative; chemicals affecting the immune, neurological or respiratory systems; and chemicals toxic to a specific organ.
The inclusion of substances that are persistent and mobile (recently introduced as a new hazard class under the CLP Regulation) in the most harmful substances will be subject to further assessment.
5. What would be considered as necessary for health or safety? What would be considered as critical for the functioning of society?
The criteria for uses that could be considered as necessary for health or safety, or critical for the functioning of society, are outlined in the Annex to the Communication.
For example, critical uses can be those that are providing resources or services that must remain in service for society to function.
This may cover the cases where the technical function of a substance is critical to provide infrastructure, service or maintenance – for example in energy conversion, mobility, transport, healthcare, digital technologies or services –, or to provide infrastructure and equipment to ensure defence and security to society.
In practice, no general conclusions can be made upfront, and each specific use will need to be assessed on its own merit against the criteria.
6. What is the definition of ‘use’ in the context of the essential use concept? Does it apply to substances or products, or both?
The essential use concept applies to uses of substances on their own, in mixtures, articles, products or processes.
The Communication defines the use as ‘any processing, formulation, consumption, storage, keeping, treatment, filling into containers, transfer from one container to another, mixing, production of an article or any other utilisation’.
To be able to assess the essentiality of a particular use of a substance, it is necessary to look at both the technical function of the substance in the particular use, as well as at the context of that use. A substance may be essential to use in one product but not in another.
7. How will this initiative benefit businesses?
The Communication will benefit companies and businesses by providing predictability in terms of types of chemical substances and uses which shall be targeted for phase-out by future regulatory processes, and which ones may continue to be used to fulfil societal needs, provided there are no alternatives available. Thereby it provides clear signals on where investment and substitution efforts shall be directed, and an investment horizon for maintaining or increasing production capacity in the EU, in particular to support the green and digital transition or strengthening defence capabilities, when technologies or products currently rely on the most harmful substances.
The Communication also provides incentives for more research and innovation into safer and more sustainable alternatives for the most harmful substances. It will also promote innovative companies which can offer acceptable alternatives or toxic-free consumer products.
The initiative will help position the EU industry as a global front-runner, capitalising on a high consumer demand for safer, toxic-free products in the large EU Single Market.
Finally, this concept can also be a tool to provide incentives under voluntary schemes such as sustainable finance and possibly other initiatives aiming to promote and reward the transition to safe and sustainable products and practices.
8. How will the Communication on essential use interact with ongoing legislative initiatives such as the REACH restriction of PFAS, the revision of REACH, and any other legislative revisions?
The Communication sets out the guiding principles and criteria for the essential use concept. It defines the guiding principles and criteria for incorporating the concept in EU legislation in a harmonised way and clarifies that, when incorporating the concept into EU legislation, the specificities of the legislation and of the regulated area must be carefully considered. The essential use concept has only legal effect once included in legislation. This would happen based on an impact assessment.
Currently, the concept is not part of the REACH regulation, and hence not of current initiatives like the PFAS restriction. However, the Communication reiterates and further clarifies that the Commission is committed to phasing out the most harmful substances, while at the same time still allowing for their use where proven essential for society, and in particular for ensuring the green and digital transition.
More information
Communication on essential use