ESG Vademecum

CDP

The CDP (formerly the Carbon Disclosure Project) is an international non-profit founded in 2000 that operates the world’s only global environmental disclosure system, enabling companies, cities, states, and regions to measure and report on climate change, water security, and deforestation impacts. It aims to standardize data collection, drive transparency, and inform investor and policy decisions.

CSDDD

The Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDD) is an EU directive (Directive (EU) 2024/1760) that entered into force on 25 July 2024. It requires large EU and non-EU companies to integrate human rights and environmental due diligence into their policies and risk-management systems, identifying, preventing, mitigating, and accounting for adverse impacts across their operations and global value chains.
For more information : Corporate sustainability due diligence - European Commission

CSRD 

The Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) is an EU directive (Directive (EU) 2022/2464) that entered into force on 5 January 2023. It modernises and expands sustainability reporting by replacing the Non-Financial Reporting directive. It requires large, listed and certain financial companies to disclose comprehensive environmental, social and governance (ESG) information according to harmonised European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS), with the first reports under CSRD due for the 2024 financial year (published in 2025).
For more information : Corporate sustainability reporting - Finance - European Commission

DMA

The double materiality assessment (DMA) is a process under the CSRD/ESRS framework that requires companies to evaluate sustainability topics through two lenses: 1. Impact materiality: how the company’s activities affect the environment and society, and 2. Financial materiality: how sustainability issues influence the company’s financial performance and resilience. The DMA yields a prioritized list of material impacts, risks, and opportunities that drive the scope and content of sustainability reporting and inform strategic decision-making.

DPP

A Digital Product Passport (DPP) is a structured collection of product related data with pre-defined scope and agreed data ownership and access rights conveyed through a unique identifier and that is accessible via electronic means through a data carrier. The intended scope of the DPP is information related to sustainability, circularity, value retention for re-use, remanufacturing, and recycling. The European Commission has defined the DPP as a tool to support three policy objectives: circularity, sustainability and compliance. The DPP is part of the EU Circular Economy Package, and the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR) sets a DPP as a key regulatory element enhancing the traceability of products and their components.

Energy Star

Energy Star (trademarked ENERGY STAR) is a program run by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) that promotes energy efficiency. The program provides information on the energy consumption of products and devices using different standardized methods. The Energy Star label is found on more than 75 different certified product categories, homes, commercial buildings, and industrial plants. In the United States, the Energy Star label is also shown on the Energy Guide appliance label of qualifying products.

EPD

An EPD (Environmental Product Declaration) is defined by International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 14025 as a Type III declaration that "quantifies environmental information on the life cycle of a product to enable comparisons between products fulfilling the same function." The EPD methodology is based on the life cycle assessment (LCA) tool that follows ISO series 14040.

EPEAT

EPEAT (Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool) is a Type 1 ecolabel managed by the Global Electronics Council (GEC) that evaluates and certifies the environmental performance of technology products - from computers and displays to mobile devices—against a comprehensive, ISO 14024-compliant set of criteria. Products meeting those criteria are listed in the EPEAT online registry, giving institutions and businesses a trusted benchmark for purchasing sustainable IT equipment.

EPR

Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) is an environmental policy tool that holds manufacturers financially accountable for the entire life cycle of their products-especially end-of-life collection, recycling and disposal. By internalizing waste management costs into product prices, EPR incentivizes eco-design, higher recovery rates and reduced environmental impact.

EPREL 

EPREL (European Product Registry for Energy Labelling) is a centralized database (EPREL Public website) managed by the European Commission that contains detailed energy performance and technical information for all product models covered by the EU Energy Labelling Framework Regulation (EU) 2017/1369. Since 1 January 2019, suppliers must register every new household, commercial, or industrial product model requiring an EU energy label - such as refrigerators, washing machines, light sources, and tyres - before placing it on the Union market. The registry supports market surveillance, public procurement, and informed consumer choice by providing up-to-date, searchable data on energy efficiency classes and product parameters.

ESG

ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) is a framework that helps stakeholders understand how an organization is managing risks and opportunities related to environmental, social, and governance criteria (sometimes called ESG factors). ESG takes the holistic view that sustainability extends beyond just environmental issues.

ESPR

The Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR) is the EU’s binding framework that entered into force on 18 July 2024, extending ecodesign requirements beyond energy-related products to virtually all physical goods placed on the EU market. It sets performance and information rules to improve product durability, reparability, resource efficiency, recyclability, and overall environmental footprint, underpinning the EU’s Circular Economy Action Plan and climate targets.
For more information :Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation - European Commission

ESRS 

ESRS (European Sustainability Reporting Standards) is the set of standards that companies subjected to the CSRD are required to follow. These standards are part of the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), which aims to enhance and harmonize the way companies report on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues.

EU Battery Regulation

The EU Batteries Regulation (Regulation (EU) 2023/1542) entered into force on 17 August 2023, repealing the 2006 Batteries Directive. It sets mandatory requirements so that batteries placed on the EU market are sustainable, safe and circular throughout their entire life cycle - including rules on design, carbon-footprint reporting, due diligence, collection, recycling and material-recovery rates.
For more information : Batteries - Environment - European Commission

EU Omnibus Regulation (general) 

In the context of EU legislation, an Omnibus Regulation is a legislative package that aims to simplify and streamline existing laws by making amendments across multiple directives or regulations in a single act. The goal is to reduce administrative burdens and improve coherence without changing the core objectives of the legislation.

EU Omnibus Proposal (COM(2025) 50 final) 

The EU Omnibus Regulation is a legislative package introduced by the European Commission in February 2025 to simplify and streamline key sustainability rules - amending the CSRD, CSDDD, EU Taxonomy, CBAM and InvestEU - to reduce administrative burdens on businesses while upholding the EU’s environmental and social objectives.
For more information : https://commission.europa.eu/document/download/1d14a487-f042-476f-997f-adf7c3e14950_en?filename=CSDDD%20Omnibus%20proposal.pdf

EU Taxonomy

The EU Taxonomy is a classification system that defines which economic activities qualify as environmentally sustainable by setting technical screening criteria across six environmental objectives. It creates a common language for companies and investors to channel capital toward the net-zero transition, guard against greenwashing, and support the goals of the European Green Deal. The EU Taxonomy is laid down in Regulation (EU) 2020/852 and is in force since 12 July 2020.
For more information : EU taxonomy for sustainable activities - Finance - European Commission

GHG

GHGs (greenhouse gases) are gases in Earth’s atmosphere that trap heat by absorbing infrared radiation emitted from the surface, driving the greenhouse effect. Key GHGs include water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and ozone.

Green Claims Directive

The Green Claims Directive is a proposal adopted by the European Commission in March 2023 to ensure that voluntary environmental claims made by businesses across the EU are reliable, comparable and verifiable. It complements the Directive on empowering consumers for the green transition by setting clear criteria for substantiating claims with robust, science-based methods, mandating independent verification of labels and claims, and establishing governance rules for environmental labelling schemes. By tackling greenwashing, it protects consumers, fosters a level playing field and supports the EU’s circular and green economy objectives.
For more information : Green claims - Environment - European Commission

GWP

The Global Warming Potential (GWP) was developed to allow comparisons of the global warming impacts of different gases. Specifically, it is a measure of how much energy the emissions of 1 ton of a gas will absorb over a given period of time, relative to the emissions of 1 ton of carbon dioxide (CO2). The larger the GWP, the more that a given gas warms the Earth compared to CO2 over that time period. The time period usually used for GWPs is 100 years. GWPs provide a common unit of measure, which allows analysts to add up emissions estimates of different gases (e.g., to compile a national GHG inventory) and allows policymakers to compare emissions reduction opportunities across sectors and gases.

ISO 14025:2006

ISO 14025:2006 establishes the principles and specifies the procedures for developing Type III environmental declaration programmes and Type III environmental declarations. It specifically establishes the use of the ISO 14040 series of standards in the development of Type III environmental declaration programmes and Type III environmental declarations.

Type III environmental declarations as described in ISO 14025:2006 are primarily intended for use in business-to-business communication, but their use in business-to-consumer communication under certain conditions is not precluded.

ISO 14044:2006

ISO 14044:2006 specifies requirements and provides guidelines for life cycle assessment (LCA) including: definition of the goal and scope of the LCA, the life cycle inventory analysis (LCI) phase, the life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) phase, the life cycle interpretation phase, reporting and critical review of the LCA, limitations of the LCA, relationship between the LCA phases, and conditions for use of value choices and optional elements.

ISO 14044:2006 covers life cycle assessment (LCA) studies and life cycle inventory (LCI) studies.

ISO 14067:2018

ISO 14067 specifies principles, requirements and guidelines for the quantification and reporting of the carbon footprint of a product (PCF), in a manner consistent with International Standards on life cycle assessment (LCA) (ISO 14040 and ISO 14044). Requirements and guidelines for the quantification of a partial CFP are also specified.

ISO 14067 addresses only a single impact category: climate change. Carbon offsetting and communication of CFP or partial CFP information are outside the scope of this document.

ISO 14024:2018

ISO 14024:2018 establishes the principles and procedures for developing Type I environmental labelling programmes, including the selection of product categories, product environmental criteria and product function characteristics, and for assessing and demonstrating compliance. ISO 14024:2018 also establishes the certification procedures for awarding the label.

LCA

LCA (Life Cycle Assessment) is a multi-step procedure for calculating the lifetime environmental impact of a product or service. The complete process of LCA includes goal and scope definition, inventory analysis, impact assessment, and interpretation. The process is naturally iterative as the quality and completeness of information, and its plausibility is constantly being tested.

LCI

LCI is the life cycle inventory, which is the data collection portion of LCA. LCI is the straight-forward accounting of everything involved in the “system” of interest. It consists of detailed tracking of all the flows in and out of the product system, including raw resources or materials, energy by type, water, and emissions to air, water and land by specific substance.

Next Generation EU

Next Generation EU, presented in May 2020, is a European Commission economic recovery package designed to support EU member states in recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic. It provides more than €800 billion in funding to help repair the immediate economic and social damage caused by the pandemic, with a focus on creating a greener, more digital, and more resilient Europe.
For more information: NextGenerationEU - European Commission

PAIA

PAIA (Product Attributes to Impact Algorithm) is an easy-to-use tool that delivers the environmental footprint of Information & Communication Technology (ICT) products. PAIA is also a network of ICT peers. Powered by MIT and the sustainability experts at Quantis, PAIA was developed in a collaborative project with ICT companies including Cisco, HP Inc, Hewlett Packard Enterprises, Dell and Lenovo.

PCF

PCF (Product Carbon Footprint) is a metric that quantifies the total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with a product throughout its life cycle – from raw material extraction and manufacturing to transportation, use and end-of-life management. PCF is typically expressed in kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalent (kg CO2e).

PCR

PCR (Product Category Rules) provide guidance that enables fair comparison among products of the same category. PCR include the description of the product category, the goal of the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), functional units, system boundaries, cut-off criteria, allocation rules, impact categories, information on the use phase, units, calculation procedures, requirements for data quality, and other information. The goal of PCR is to help develop Environmental Product Declarations (EPD) for products that are comparable to others within a product category.

PPWR

The Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (Regulation (EU) 2025/40) replaces the former Packaging and Packaging Waste Directive (94/62/EC). It entered into force on 11 February 2025, with the first requirements applying from 12 August 2026, and aims to make all packaging on the EU market recyclable in an economically viable way by 2030 through harmonized eco-design, waste prevention, reuse, and recycling targets.
For more information: Packaging & Packaging Waste Regulation - European Commission

Scope 1 emissions

Scope 1 emissions are direct greenhouse gas emissions from sources owned or controlled by an organization, such as fuel burned in company vehicles or boilers.

Scope 2 emissions

Scope 2 emissions are indirect greenhouse gas emissions associated with the consumption of purchased electricity, steam, heat, or cooling generated off-site by external supplier.

Scope 3 emissions

Scope 3 emissions are all other indirect greenhouse-gas emissions that occur in an organization’s value chain - both upstream (e.g., production of purchased goods, transportation, waste) and downstream (e.g., use of sold products, end-of-life treatment).

TCO certified

The TCO Certified certification was initially created by the Swedish Confederation of Professional Employees (TCO) to guarantee that computer products purchased by employers maintain ecological standards and were sufficiently ergonomic to prevent long term health issues for users. It became known during the 1990s as a certification for computer displays. Dating back to 1992, TCO is one of the oldest certifications for end user electronics. TCO publishes new guidelines every 3 to 4 years. The standards expanded from covering only computer monitors in 1992 to a wide array of devices today.