On 23 March 2023, the European Commission opened a public consultation on its draft Directive “on substantiation and communication of explicit environmental claims (Green Claims Directive). The main purpose of this text, which aims to regulate them by establishing common criteria against greenwashing and misleading environmental claims, is open for comment until 19 May 2023.
In presenting its proposal, the European Commission recalls that Commission study from 2020 highlighted that 53.3% of examined environmental claims in the EU were found to be vague, misleading or unfounded and 40% were unsubstantiated. “The absence of common rules for companies making voluntary green claims leads to ‘greenwashing’ and creates an uneven playing field in the EU’s market, to the disadvantage of genuinely sustainable companies,” underlines its press release.
The draft Green Claims Directive aims to change this situation by:
• Providing consumers with more clarity, greater assurance that a product sold as green is really green and better information for choosing environmentally friendly products and services
• allowing companies that make real efforts to improve the environmental sustainability of their products to be more easily recognised and rewarded by consumers and to be able to boost their sales, instead of facing unfair competition
The proposal targets explicit claims, such as: “packaging made of 30% recycled plastic” or “ocean friendly sunscreen”. It also aims to tackle the proliferation of labels as well as new public and private environmental labels. It covers all voluntary claims about the environmental impacts, aspects or performance of a product, service or the trader itself. …
