The European Parliament has voted in favour of the Green Claims Directive in its first position reading.
The draft report puts forward stricter rules to back green claims and labels, and better governance processes for sustainability labels.
If approved by the new European Parliament after the upcoming elections, the Green Claims Directive would oblige companies to submit evidence about their environmental marketing claims before advertising products as “biodegradable”, “less polluting”, “water saving” or having “bio-based content”. EU countries would have to assign third-party verifiers to pre-approve the use of such claims.
Currently, about 75% of the products on the EU market carry an implicit or explicit green claim of some kind. Yet, the sheer number of different labels- there are 230 ecolabels available in the EU - can be bewildering for consumers. Their environmental claims can be unreliable, unsubstantiated, and lacking in credibility, making it difficult for consumers to make a truly informed choice.
The draft introduces potential penalties for companies that break the rules, which include temporarily exclusion from public procurement tenders, loss of revenues, and fines of at least at 4% of their annual turnover.
The Parliament also agreed that green claims based solely on carbon offsetting schemes should remain banned. Companies could, however, mention offsetting and carbon removal schemes in their ads if they have already reduced their emissions as much as possible and use these schemes for residual emissions only, the institution said in a statement.
In addition, the Parliament agreed on introducing a Green Claims Consultation Forum which will give more voice to civil society and other stakeholders to influence future legislation resulting from the Green Claims Directive.
“It is time to put an end to greenwashing,” said Environment Committee rapporteur Cyrus Engerer. “Our position ends the proliferation of misleading green claims that have deceived consumers for far too long. We will ensure businesses have the right tools to embrace genuine sustainability practices. European consumers want to make sustainable choices; all those offering products or services must guarantee their green claims are scientifically verified.”
The directive would also require companies to substantiate the voluntary green claims they make in business-to-consumer commercial practices, by complying with several requirements regarding their assessment, for example, by presenting results of a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA).
European Bioplastics and other industry bodies have previously called on the EU to clarify rules for the comparison of different product categories and further develop methods to calculate the life-cycle environmental impacts of products.