France establishes list of substances with endocrine disrupting properties

Topic: New obligations in France under AGEC Law

Date of publication: 12/10/2023

On 12 October 2023, France’s Minister of Ecological Transition and Territorial Cohesion published 3 Decrees relating to substances with endocrine disrupting properties.

BACKGROUND

In 2020, France issued Decree No. 2020-105, also known as Anti-Waste for a Circular Economy (AGEC) Law.

AGEC mandates that manufacturers of consumer products containing proven, presumed, or suspected endocrine disruptors must provide elctronically the necessary information for the public to identify these substances in consumer products. This obligation aligns with the objectives of the France’s Second National Strategy on Endocrine Disruptors (SNPE2).

WHAT’S NEW?

On October 2023, France published three Ministerial Decrees setting out the obligation to inform consumers about the presence of known, suspected, or alleged endocrine disruptors in consumer products. These Decrees came into effect on 13 October 2023.

These new decrees set out:

The list of substances with endocrine disrupting properties for which this obligation applies;
The terms and conditions relating to the content and conditions of presentation of the information which will be available to the public;
An alternative method of informing the public, the “Scan4Chem” application, relating to information on the presence of substances which qualify as proven, presumed, or suspected endocrine disrupting properties.

Under these Ministerial Decrees, suppliers who place onto the market products containing an Endocrine Disruptor (ED) substance in a concentration that exceeds 0.1% are obliged to share electronic information with the public. This concentration can be either in the product itself or in its primary packaging.

This information must be accessible to the public for foodstuffs, substances, mixtures, and articles, excluding medicines and including cosmetic products.

The list of EDs include over 128 substances, divided between proven, presumed, or suspected EDs based on article L. 5232-5 of the French Public Health Code. The full list of endocrine disruptors is available here.

Note: 13 of these substances are already listed in Annex II (list of prohibited substances in cosmetic products) to Cosmetics Regulation (EC) No. 1223/2009.

The deadline for compliance is 12 April 2024.

References:

Ministère de la Transition écologique et de la Cohésion des territoires – Information des consommateurs sur la présence de perturbateurs endocriniens dans les produits: trois arrêtés ministériels précisent les modalités d’application de cette obligation

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