As the European Commission pushes forward with the Industrial Decarbonization Accelerator Act (IDAA), a key part of the Clean Industrial Deal, CEN and CENELEC are stepping up to ensure standards play a key role in Europe’s green industrial future. The objective of the IDAA is to increase sustainable and resilient industrial production in energy-intensive industrial sectors in the EU by supporting decarbonization investments.
European standards are already supporting Europe’s industrial decarbonization efforts and ambitions. To fully realize this potential, CEN and CENELEC ask the European Commission to:
- apply standards consistently in future legislation, including through the IDAA, and to fully leverage relevant existing standards that can support the IDAA, including in grid harmonization, life cycle assessment (LCA) calculations, hydrogen infrastructure, the circular economy and wind energy;
- ensure coherence with existing EU rules, such as the ESPR and the EU Taxonomy, which already set requirements for energy-intensive industries, such as steel;
- fully leverage the knowledge of European experts to drive the international standardization of emerging technologies in support of industrial decarbonization.
To fully realize the potential of decarbonization technologies, policy makers should promptly engage with standardization experts when developing legislation. This ensures decisions are grounded in technical reality and aligned with market dynamics, avoiding barriers to industry uptake and innovation.
Standardization ensures clarity, interoperability, and trust. It democratizes access in the market, while reducing costs, barriers and enabling scale. These are essential in aiding the European industry to decarbonize.
You can find the CEN and CENELEC response submitted on the website of the European Commission here. The full CEN and CENELEC response is available here.
