ANOTHER SUCCESSFUL MEETING FOR EUROPEAN BATHROOM FORUM
27/03/2018 | A solid, credible and industry wide acceptable European wide Water Label, which can be viewed by the European Commission as a Voluntary Agreement, is a step closer following the last European Bathroom Forum (EBF) meeting held in Frankfurt. The EBF welcomed over 30 major manufacturers, national trade bodies and like-minded bodies to the open forum meeting to receive an update on activity and discuss the ‘Best of All’, approach with colleagues from Swedish Energy and ANQIP (The Portuguese body responsible for quality and water efficiency). Both organisations are seeking to uniform their labels together with the Water Label and the Swiss Energy label. Initial discussions identified a small amount of compromise necessary to bring the schemes together, with the detail being openly discussed with interested parties over the coming months. The enthusiasm by all parties to bring the four schemes together was very visible, with all in the room pledging their support for the ‘Best of All’ initiative. Carlos Velazquez, Roca Group, and Forum Chair commented that this is another important step towards the aim of having a single Water Label for water using bathroom products across Europe and said, “There is clearly a great passion to achieve harmonisation throughout Europe.” “Achieving a Voluntary Agreement brings challenges that the industry must face head on, 80% of units sold must be registered, an environmental modelling of projected water and energy saving must be undertaken by a third party and the industry must pledge to achieve this by the middle of next year. “We all recognise that this is a huge task, but one the industry is more than capable of achieving.” A meeting with European Commission representatives, Industry and JRC late 2017 has indicated that a Voluntary Agreement is a strong possibility. During the Forum meeting, Mr Velazquez highlighted the newly launched European Bathroom Forum website that now hosts the Water Label and its extensive database. During 2018 all meeting papers, roadmap, newsletters and progress reports will be available from the site for all to see. Mr Velazquez, acting Chair for the meeting was formally elected as Chairman for the ongoing 12 months supported by Miguel Definti who was elected as Vice Chairman. The next Forum meeting will be held in Lisbon on Thursday 5 July, if you are interested in attending please lodge your intentions with Vikki Hollins at admin@europeanbathroomforum.org