A new EU campaign has been launched to raise the profile of CE marking – something that businesses placing electrical goods on the EU market have been required to add to their products for many years. Alex Martin, Technical Officer at AMDEA, considers the aims of the campaign.

Despite the change of government and new priorities at the top, many issues with which AMDEA will be dealing in the second half of 2010 are a continuation of the current work of the Association. Douglas Herbison, AMDEA’s chief executive, explains.

Flames have been a hazard since man first discovered fire and while careless cooking cannot be blamed for the extinction of the dinosaurs, it was certainly responsible for the key event of 1666 - the Great Fire of London.

Thomas Farynor, baker to King Charles II, had his bakery in Pudding Lane in London.  On the night of 2 September 1666, around 1am, a servant awoke to find the house in flames.  The baker’s family escaped but a terrified maid was trapped in the blaze and the fire eventually destroyed around 80% of the city.  The death toll was remarkably low – around 16 people are thought to have perished and the city was rebuilt to a safer standard.  The cause of the blaze was traced to an unattended stove that had set alight the timber frame of the building.

There is a common but unfortunate habit in many organisations to separate the work on technical issues from commercial or even ‘political’ matters.

This has become ever more obvious since the government and the regulatory authorities are imposing technical – particularly environmental – specifications on how we manufacture and market our products. So our response to these activities has to be broad and comprehensive.

At the start of a New Year, it is always useful to review progress made in the previous 12 months. There may have been an economic downturn in 2009, but there was certainly no reduction in AMDEA’s activities on behalf of its members.

The UK population is not only growing in size but it is also getting older.  According to the Office for National Statistics, 16% of the UK population in 2008 was over 65 with more than 1.3 million people aged 85 and over.  Although the effect of the post-war baby boom will start to decrease around 2030, the number of these “oldest old” in the UK is projected to double by 2033 so that almost 5% of the total population could be aged 85 or more.

AMDEA has participated recently in a number of meetings and conferences to discuss what one of my staff calls "smart thingies".

Yes, we are talking about Smart Meters, but in fact what we are discussing goes much further than just a gadget to allow consumers to see how much electricity or gas they are consuming.

AMDEA has been arguing for some years that consumers need direct incentives to buy more energy efficient domestic appliances.  We were therefore very pleased to see support for this idea from the British Retail Consortium whose letter to the Chancellor in August proposed that energy efficient appliances should be zero rated for VAT with a possible scrappage scheme for white goods.

The EU's Ecodesign for Energy-using Products Directive (or ‘EuP') has, this year, proved a fertile compost for new legislation: eight new regulations have grown forth under the Directive, with July seeing the European Commission adopt four of the eight as its most current ‘package' on ecodesign.  While the ‘EuP Directive' and ‘Ecodesign Regulations' are something that manufacturers have to respond to, electrical retailers may be interested to learn that they are party to a revolution.  For as ecodesign legislation begins to take effect, so too does a transformation in electrical appliances.

An expression ‘things European' acts as an instant turn-off for many people. We have just had a European Parliament election with an embarrassingly low voter turnout. In addition, electors clearly did not go to the polls to vote on European issues. Instead, the vote reflected the present economic crisis and the expenses scandal involving MPs in the Westminster Parliament. Yet the people elected on 7 June are soon going to find themselves deeply involved in issues which affect all of us. Many of these issues directly affect industry and commerce. They relate to trade, economic, environmental and other matters. Of serious concern to the manufacturers and retailers of domestic appliances are the WEEE (Waste Electrical) and RoHS (Hazardous Substances) Directives.

The Waste Batteries and Accumulators Regulations 2009 coming into force will mark the full implementation in the UK of the EU Batteries and Accumulators and the Waste Batteries and Accumulators Directive. Previously, in Regulations published in 2008, the Government had implemented requirements relating to battery labelling and design. Now it has implemented requirements relating to the collection, treatment and recycling of waste batteries and accumulators.

As Chief Executive of AMDEA, I have to take a broad approach and consider a wide range of issues and perspectives. Hence I recently attended a breakfast meeting discussing trade relations with China.

One of the important roles for any trade association is involvement in official and unofficial consultations with the government - which these days means dealing with institutions both in London and Brussels.