Have you seen the latest EU proposal on substantiation and communication of explicit environmental claims (Green Claims Directive)?
23/03/2023
An important and interesting part is on the update proposal of the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive which regulates misleading practices and misleading omissions with general provisions that can be applied to environmental claims in business-to consumer transactions when they negatively affect consumers transactional decisions.
The proposal is to amend the UCPD and tackle in part the problems of “greenwashing” and untransparent sustainability labels.
It implements a series of measures on environmental claims resulting from the preferred policy options:
- The list of product characteristics about which a trader should not deceive a consumer in Article 6(1) of Directive 2005/29/EC is amended to include ‘environmental or social impact, ‘durability’ and ‘reparability’.
- The list of actions which are to be considered misleading if they cause or are likely to cause the average consumers to take a transactional decision that they would not have otherwise taken, in Article 6(2) of Directive 2005/29/EC, is amended to include ‘making an environmental claim related to future environmental performance without clear, objective and verifiable commitments and targets and an independent monitoring system.
- The list of commercial practices which are considered unfair in all circumstances, in Annex I of Directive 2005/29/EC, is extended to four practices associated with greenwashing:
- Displaying a sustainability label which is not based on a certification scheme or not established by public authorities.
- Making a generic environmental claim for which the trader is not able to demonstrate recognised excellent environmental performance relevant to the claim.
- Making an environmental claim about the entire product when it concerns only a certain aspect of the product.
- Presenting requirements imposed by law on all products in the relevant product category on the Union market as a distinctive feature of the trader’s offer.
So as a business make sure your communication/marketing/sales department is fully updated on the upcoming new actions against greenwashing.
More info in the document via the link below.
https://environment.ec.europa.eu/publications/proposal-directive-green-claims_en
#business #greenclaims #UCPD
