The European Commission (EC) proposed common criteria against greenwashing and misleading environmental claims today. This proposal seeks to empower consumers to have more clarity and reassurance that they actually buy green, when it is advertised as such, and to have more reliable, comparable and verifiable product information for choosing environment-friendly goods and services.
The proposal addresses the following aspects:
- Whenever companies choose to make ‘green claims' about their products or services, they will be held to a minimum standard on how they justify and communicate them to consumers.
- Before releasing any ‘green claims' that are not yet covered by existing EU rules, they will need to be independently verified and proven with scientific evidence. This includes identifying the actual environmental impacts related to the product as well as identifying any possible trade-offs for a fully accurate picture.
- For instance, this would apply for explicit claims, such as ‘packaging made of 30 percent recycled plastic' or ‘ocean friendly sunscreen'.
- Moreover, environmental labels will be explicitly regulated with detailed requirement for them to be reliable, transparent, independently verified, and regularly reviewed.
- As there are currently at least 230 different labels with evidence for consumer confusion and distrust, any further proliferation of new public and private environmental labels is to be tackled.
- For this, new public labelling schemes will be prohibited, unless developed at EU level, and any new private schemes will need to show higher environmental ambition than existing ones and get a pre-approval to be allowed.
Monique Goyens, BEUC Director General, commented on green claims: "In a jungle of unregulated green claims, how can consumers possibly know which products are truly sustainable? The Commission is raising their game to fight greenwashing, putting an end to the wild west of unsubstantiated green claims. Preventing the problem instead of correcting it once the harm is done is an innovative move which will benefit consumers, who want to act sustainably and need reliable information to do so. Yet a future EU green claims law will only be as good as its enforcement. It is great that the Commission has heard the message. Authorities will have to heavily fine companies to clean up the market from misleading green claims and labels once and for all. It is also great news that consumer organisations will be able to bring collective complaints to court."
Source: EC & BEUC
More information and BEUC press release