Refrigerators and freezers, also known as “cold appliances”, have been the first and the most studied EuP in the European Union with the goal to reduce their energy consumption. In 1993, the study of the Group for Efficient Appliances (GEA, 1993) provided the technical basis for both the energy labelling and the energy efficiency requirements Directives, and later also partially for the Eco-label awarding criteria. Its results and methodology were the starting point for the second study (ADEME, 2000, colloquially known as the COLD II study) promoted by DG TREN in 1998 which took into consideration the methodological, technical, economical and market developments and proposed a new structure for a revised label and a new set of efficiency targets which then for various reasons were not fully accepted by Member States.  Contemporarily, the European Eco-label Board started to address this product group more from the environmental impact point of view with other studies, which resulted in the definition of a series of eco-labelling awarding criteria for refrigerators and freezers, the latest being: on December 1999 the Commission adopted the criteria valid until December 1st 2003. These criteria were then prolonged to December 1st 2004. New criteria were established in 2004 and are valid from May 1st 2004 until May 31st 2007. In the meantime, a series of four monitoring studies were promoted by the SAVE Programme to evaluate the impact of the EU legislation on the market transformation of cold appliances and energy consumption (ADEME, 1998; ADEME, 2000; ADEME, 2001). More recently, the European Association of Household Appliance Manufacturers (CECED) issued in October 2002 a Voluntary Commitment on reducing energy consumption of household refrigerators, freezers and their combinations.  Since markets and technologies change continually, including in response to past policy settings, the present study proposal takes the results and methodology defined in the last decade of studies as the starting point to be updated and upgraded where necessary to evaluate the technical, economic and market developments of cold appliances and the new aspects of these products to be covered following the indications of the eco-design directive 2005/32/EC. This is necessary in order to define the need of implementing measures and possible targets for voluntary or mandatory policies.