Support study for the evaluation of the EU ETV pilot programme including an ex-ante assessment of possible options for the future of an EU ETV scheme : final report : objective B - Feasibility studies

This Final Report presents the overall findings and conclusions of the Feasibility Studies exploring potential future uses of the EU ETV (Objective B of this two-part project) and sets out recommendations and lessons learnt. This research explored the feasibility of using ETV to support the fulfilment of environmental and innovation policy areas in four distinct areas. These include: - ETV as proof of performance for innovative environmental technologies in support of performance-based legislation; - ETV as proof of performance in the context of public procurement, in support of policies on Green Public Procurement (GPP) and Public Procurement for Innovative solutions (PPIS);  ETV as an alternative to certification systems to verify the performance and quality of secondary raw materials, by-products and product parts (solid resources1), in the context of the transition towards a circular economy; and - ETV turned into an Innovative Technology Verification (ITV) scheme by opening the scope of ETV to all innovative technologies. In addition to these four scenarios, this study also assessed the rationale, relevance and EU added value of an enlarged ETV programme covering the whole EU2 (collectively termed Feasibility study 5). The business case assessment aimed to define and establish the scale of the current problem for each scenario and the potential use of the ETV in each scenario for alleviating or overcoming the problem. This study shows that three of the five scenarios investigated in this report (i.e. expanded ETV, IED, GPP/PPIS) stand out for demonstrating a clear rationale, coupled with a medium to very high EU added value, despite the potential weaknesses identified. Their implementation rests essentially on a continuation of the current EU ETV infrastructure, complemented by additional Verification Bodies (VBs) in other Member States to provide the necessary expertise that is currently lacking. An estimate of the costs for each of the selected options is provided. Engaging up to four new VBs to cover a new thematic area such as IED implies set-up costs of EUR 329,200 and operational costs of EUR 252,100, a total of EUR 581,300 per theme. Additional costs are also required for marketing, guidance and mechanisms to support the options, including assistance to VBs to improve their capabilities. Further investigation into the precise number of Technology Areas (TAs) required across VBs is needed. This should be based on a thorough assessment of future technology supply (and end-user demand) and research into whether a VB can adequately provide coverage across a number of Member States for any given TA.