At the FORUM WASCHEN stakeholders' workshop, about 60 representatives of industry, household associations, environmental and consumer organisations as well as public authorities discussed the impact of the EU Green Deal on washing and cleaning. The event on 7 and 8 September, 2023, was organized and moderated by ConPolicy.
The event was opened by Christian Kühn MdB, Parliamentary State Secretary at the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Nuclear Safety and Consumer Protection (BMUV).
Afterwards, Jutta Klasen, Ph.D., Head of Department at the Federal Environment Agency, Professor Andreas Luch, Head of Department at the Federal Institute for Risk Assessment, Elke Salzmann from the Federation of German Consumer Organisations (vzbv), Matthias Opfinger, Ph.D., Head of Department at IGBCE and Christine Schneider from Henkel discussed how the measures announced by the EU in the context of the Green Deal will affect the washing and cleaning sector.
The discussion was deepened in workshops on the topics of 'sustainable products', 'textiles', and 'chemicals'. The initiatives of the EU Commission, especially in the area of chemicals policy, were assessed controversially by the different groups of actors. However, especially in view of the divergent assessments, there was unanimous agreement that FORUM WASCHEN has an important task in providing differentiated information about sustainability aspects in the washing and cleaning sector.
The FORUM WASCHEN is a sustainability initiative in the areas of washing, dishwashingand cleaning. Since 2002, experts from authorities, research, trade unions, manufacturers of detergents and household appliances, churches, environmental organisations and consumer associations have been working together in this dialogue forum. The strategies, actions and events of the FORUM WASCHEN are defined in stakeholder workshops. ConPolicy has supported the FORUM WASCHEN since 2013 with the organisation and moderation of the stakeholder workshops.
The presentations from this year's stakeholder workshop can be downloaded here.
