The new Green Claims Directive proposed by the European Commission aims to put an end to misleading and unreliable green marketing throughout the EU.
When making a purchasing decision, for many consumers today part of the evaluation includes weighing the environmental impact of the product in question. They do so partly by checking the labels. Currently, about 75% of the products on the EU market carry an implicit or explicit green claim of some kind.
Yet for consumers, the sheer number of different labels- there are 230 ecolabels available in the EU - can be bewildering. Their environmental claims can be unreliable, unsubstantiated and lacking in credibility, making it difficult for consumers to make a truly informed choice.
These greenwashing practices are the target of the proposed new law.
In the current proposal, minimum rules are laid down according to which companies must back up their claims. These include banning the use of any product rating system that is not based on EU common rules. Minimum transparency requirements for sustainability labels are formulated, such as verification by an independent third party, for example, the EU Ecolabel; and a the creation of a registry of the ecolabels that can be trusted.
Moreover, companies must provide independent supporting evidence for their green claims; market surveillance authorities must enforce this through regular checks and severe penalties in case of infringement.
According to the European Environmental Bureau, however, the proposal, while welcome, fails to provide a clear ban on carbon-neutral claims and on the use of green claims on products that contain hazardous chemicals. The EEB urges the European Parliament and national governments to prioritise these provisions during the upcoming negotiations on the Directive.
“The Green Claims Directive is a promising tool to wipe out the misleading claims that muddy the waters of sustainability and make it hard to distinguish between the companies who strive to reduce their impacts and those who just greenwash their products,” said Blanca Morales, senior coordinator for the EU Ecolabel at the EEB. “It is now urgent to crack down on climate-washing claims and to ensure that products containing hazardous substances are not sold as green.”