The 24 pilot projects for the development of product-specific Product Environmental Footprints (PEF) set up by the European Commission will be completed by the end of 2017. Many industrial companies have invested a great deal of effort in ensuring a practical design of the PEF methodology. However, this still contains many defects. Here, there is an urgent need for follow-up if the PEF is to provide meaningful added value compared to existing and established environmental product evaluation tools.