Free ICT Europe Releases 2025 Report

Campaigning for less restrictive access to software, tackling greenwashing on the organization’s docket this year. 

Origina and Free ICT Europe are both defined by fairness.  

In Origina’s case, this means helping organizations gain control of their IT ecosystems by extending asset life, reducing technical debt, and optimizing budget costs.  

For Free ICT Europe, it translates into advocating for the Right to Repair, a circular economy, and open markets for hardware/software trade, repair, and maintenance in the information and communications technology (ICT) sector. 

Recently, the organization released a new report, “Free ICT Europe 2025: New Beginnings, Continued Progress,” outlining plans, trends, and opportunities for the year.  

Here are some of the topics Free ICT Europe will focus on in 2025. 

The Competitiveness Compass 

The Compass outlines a framework aimed at enhancing the competitiveness of European companies by addressing innovation gaps, reducing regulatory burdens, and fostering a more integrated single market.  

According to the report, this framework proposes measures to improve access to venture capital, streamline regulations, and promote skills development that will create a more conducive environment for businesses to thrive and scale up within the EU. 

Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation 

The Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (EPSR) aims to improve the environmental sustainability of products and develop a single market for sustainable products across the EU.  

By setting harmonized product sustainability requirements applicable across all member states, Free ICT Europe can address the current fragmentation in this area and level the playing field for businesses operating on the EU single market. The aim is for products to use less energy, last longer, be more easily repaired, and maintain their material value for as long as possible, according to the report. 

Topics to be addressed include repairability, obsolescence, and recyclability, particularly of electronic equipment. The organization also intends to revise ecodesign product groups to make adjustments in areas such as servers and data storage; computers, tablets, and monitors; external power supplies; and imagining equipment.
 

The Green Claims Directive 

Free ICT Europe calls the Green Claims Directive “Europe’s best chance to eliminate the practice of greenwashing.” Greenwashing is using misleading language, images, or figures to imply that a company is more environmentally friendly than it is.  

Entering the final negotiation phase, the directive will regulate explicit environmental claims and labels used by companies — written or oral text — with more than 10 employees and an annual turnover of €2M to “market their environmental friendliness and foresees a series of sanctions against economic operators making baseless claims,” according to the report. 

Key elements and commentary on this directive include:  

• Ensure the efficient verification of all claims before they enter the market. 
• Smaller businesses that cannot afford the best lawyers and who cannot risk enforcement are the most disadvantaged. The process should be swift, manageable, and affordable. 
• Companies must back their environmental claims and labels with clear criteria and up-to-date scientific evidence. These claims and labels should be straightforward and specify the environmental characteristics they address, such as durability or recyclability, for example through accepted Life Cycle Assessments (LCAs).
• Carbon credits: Prevent misleading environmental claims relying on offsetting of environmental impacts, including at the traders’ level.

Alignment with the European Commission 

In many ways, the European Commission and Free ICT Europe are aligned, which represents opportunities. Both organizations aim to address the climate crisis and build on digital transformation. 

“The 2024-2029 mandate of the European Commission is expected to prioritize climate action, digital transformation, geopolitical positioning, and social equity,” the report states. “These are the areas where Free ICT Europe sees an opportunity to the link the aims of a healthy, open and fair secondary market and the needs of businesses and government to control their own digital assets.” 

For more information on Free ICT Europe, visit their website.  

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