1. Member States shall not prohibit, restrict or impede the placing on the market and/or putting into service, within their territories, on grounds of ecodesign requirements relating to those ecodesign parameters referred to in Annex I, part 1 which are covered by the applicable implementing measure, of an EuP that complies with all the relevant provisions of the applicable implementing measure and bears the CE marking in accordance with Article 5 .

"Specific ecodesign requirement" means a quantified and measurable ecodesign requirement relating to a particular environmental aspect of an EuP, such as energy consumption during use, calculated for a given unit of output performance;

Eco-design requirements will then become legally binding for all products, in this case washing machines, put on the EU market, irrespective of where they are designed and produced.

Eco-design, which means the integration of environmental considerations at the design phase, is arguably the best way to improve the environmental performance of products.

Clarification of the purposes of the directive and the attribution of responsibility as regards conformity of EuP; Member States will designate authorities responsible for market surveillance; EuP must comply with eco-design parameters which are covered by the applicable implementing measure; While maintaining the choice for a manufacturer between the internal design control and the management system, the latter has been amended with a view to ensuring that it remains possible for the manufacturer to use quality management systems for proving conformity, as long as they meet the requirements governing management systems for assessing ...[+++]conformity; Eco-labels which will be regarded as fulfilling conditions equivalent to the Community eco-label will be presumed to be in conformity with the requirements of the applicable implementing measures; While it is stated that the Commission will adopt implementing measures, the criteria and the steps to be taken when preparing implementing measures, in particular a minimum sales and trade volume threshold, have been clarified and specified; The Commission will establish a work plan setting out a list of products which could be subject to implementing measures as a priority, in particular those products which have been identified by the European Climate Change Plan as offering a high potential for the cost-effective reduction of greenhouse gases; Consultation Forum : when envisaging the preparation of an implementing measure with regard to a given product, the Commission has to ensure the balanced participation of Member States and the proper involvement of all parties concerned.

There is an evolving science around design for environment, which is taught at various universities, and which is gaining support from various governments throughout the world.