When the Rules Weren’t Ready, She Was

“Life is strange sometimes,” says Eva Virtute. A trained lawyer, she never expected sustainability to become a defining part of her work. And she certainly did not expect that, in a world already overwhelmed by rules and regulations, she would end up pushing for another framework.

Sustainability & Competence Center Sustainability, keeping an eye on new requirements is, after all, part of her job.

The Missing Piece

“It all started about three years ago,” Eva recalls. At the time, she was looking closely at the ESPR , the EU’s new Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation, and exploring what it would mean for KION’s forklift and warehouse trucks. As Director Advocacy & Product

But when she tried to put the ESPR requirements into practice, she ran into a fundamental problem: she could not. “The methodology needed to assess the environmental footprint of forklift trucks and warehouse equipment simply did not exist,” Eva says.

It was a Kafkaesque situation. Eva could have stopped there and complained about the madness of it all. Instead, she chose to act. “We decided to push for the development of a PCR for industrial trucks,” she says.

Time to Act

A Product Category Rule, or PCR, is a detailed framework specifying how the environmental impact of a specific product category should be calculated and reported. “A common ground for everyone,” as Eva puts it. The shared set of rules would make assessments consistent and comparable across the industry.

Of course, Eva could not simply sit down and write such a rulebook herself. But she could push for the creation of a committee dedicated to the task – and eventually become part of it herself. The group brought together representatives from several brands in the industry, external consultants and researchers from the University of Siena.

Words Matter

It would take three years before that work produced a final result. Much of the time was spent on questions that sound deceptively simple. “There were lots of discussions about definitions,” Eva recalls. “What does this or that mean exactly? Does everyone have the same understanding of a certain word?”

Once the first draft was ready, it was opened up to other companies across the industry for review, giving manufacturers beyond the committee the opportunity to comment, challenge and add to the proposed rules. Hundreds of comments came back.

On February 17, 2026, the work finally paid off: the new 27-page PCR for industrial trucks was officially published. “It’s not mandatory,” Eva stresses. No manufacturer is forced to use the PCR. But those who do are working from the same methodology – making environmental declarations far more consistent and, crucially, comparable. What had started as a missing piece in KION’s own sustainability work had become a framework available to the entire industry.

A Useful Tool

“The general feeling many people have is that they are overwhelmed by regulation,” Eva says. “You do a lot, but there is always something new – another requirement, another step to follow.” At first glance, the PCR may seem like yet another addition to that paperwork. In reality, however, it does the opposite: it provides a clear method for dealing with existing requirements. “Now you have a tool,” Eva says.

A lawyer handing engineers a new tool is an unlikely role reversal – particularly at a company that builds multi-ton industrial trucks. Yet that is exactly what Eva Virtute ended up doing. Life is strange sometimes.