European Parliament declares war on greenwashing

New laws are planned to improve labelling on products and ban the use of misleading environmental claims – so-called ‘greenwashing’.

The European Parliament has announced its intention to introduce a new directive to make product labelling clearer and more trustworthy, thus helping consumers to make better purchasing decisions. This will involve prohibiting the use of general environmental claims, such as ‘biodegradable’, ‘climate neutral’, ‘eco’, ‘environmentally friendly’ or ‘natural’, without the evidence to back up these assertions. The directive will also not allow claims that a product has a neutral, positive or reduced impact on the environment as a result of an emission offsetting scheme.

In addition, these proposals include a regulation of which labels indicating that a product may be viewed as ‘sustainable’ can be used. Only label designs that are based on an official certification scheme or have been established by a public authority will be permitted within the European Union.

Moving away from a throwaway culture

The authors of this directive have included another objective – to make both businesses and their customers focus more on a product’s durability. Any guarantees being presented will have to be more visible, and a harmonised label is to be designed in order to make items which feature an extended guarantee period more prominent.

At the same time, unfounded durability claims will be forbidden, as will prompts to replace goods earlier than strictly necessary, in addition to any information which incorrectly suggests that an item can be repaired.

A stated intention of the new directive is to move away from a ‘throwaway culture’, while making marketing more transparent and fighting the premature obsolescence of goods. The purpose is for shoppers to therefore be able to select goods that are more durable, repairable and sustainable as a result of reliable advertising and product labelling.

The next step for this new directive is to receive final approval from the European Council. It will then be published in the body’s Official Journal, after which member states will be given a period of two years to introduce it into their national legislation.

Publishing Data

This article was originally published on page 4 of the January 2024 issue of SATRA Bulletin.

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