Less greenwashing and more green – empowering consumers for the green transition

One of the priorities of the European Green Deal is to empower consumers for the green transition. Tackling greenwashing will be key in this process – companies should not be allowed to give a false impression of their environmental impacts or benefits. Fortunately, change is coming: on 30 March, the European Commission will announce their long-awaited Empowering Consumers Initiative, a crucial step to foster sustainable products and finally address greenwashing.

How can this be done? Only through explicit legislation on what businesses may or may not claim, banning vague, irrelevant, misleading, or factually wrong claims. While companies should still be able to report on their efforts to make products more sustainable, this information should always be regulated and third-party verified. It is not enough to say ‘I am green’ – businesses must walk the talk.

Regulating greenwashing will not only help consumers make more sustainable choices but also encourage companies to explore the higher tiers of the circular economy, focusing on sufficiency, prevention and ecodesign, instead of investing in new marketing strategies.

Too good to be true?

In 2021, consumer authorities found that over 40% of green claims were exaggerated, false or deceptive, while over half of them were not sufficiently substantiated. Our own 2021 study of ‘green’ claims on plastic items concluded that nearly half of ‘green’ claims on plastic products could in fact be misleading: either irrelevant, unclear, unreliable or not third-party verified. Or all four together!

In many cases, green claims are simply vague and general. Some will add a natural landscape to the label, or a commercial statement such as ‘eco-friendly’ or ‘100% natural’. Others will claim that their product can last forever or can be easily repaired. While consumer protection regulations do exist, there is no clear, specific legislation on ‘green’ claims. As a result, companies are free to use vague language to advertise their products as ‘environmentally friendly’, even if it is not the case.

Making sure the EU legislation is on track

The two most relevant pieces of EU legislation in this current debate are the Consumer Rights Directive and the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive. They are meant to protect consumers by providing a generic safety net against untruthful information or aggressive marketing. However, neither Directive is well equipped to address sector- or product-claims.  For this, other legislation exists, for example, dedicated rules regulating health claims, but there is no law that fights greenwashing – or not yet.

This is why the European Commission proposes to revise both Directives, and introduce an initiative on Substantiating Green Claims, to make the claims reliable, comparable and verifiable across the EU, as well as to limit greenwashing practices.

Greening the green claims – what do we need?

The keyword: reliable information. Words carry meaning, and so terms such as reusable, recyclable, and biodegradable should be harmonised and defined by law, so that consumers fully understand what they buy. And since it is usually consumers who can spot potentially misleading claims on products while shopping, they should be able to easily and systematically report these claims, too.

Besides that, companies wishing to dub their products as ‘reusable’ or ‘biodegradable’ will need to follow the requirements defined in the initiative on Substantiating Green Claims, which will complement the initiative to Empower Consumers. The Green Claim initiative should include a list of approved claims, with requirements to be allowed to use them.

In order to truly empower consumers, the EU must also tackle misinformation: loose and stretchable definitions must be fully banned. We need to develop a ‘black list’ of banned green claims, forbidding vague ones, such as “eco-friendly” or simply “green”. It is essential to tackle misleading claims such as reusable plastic cutlery which is very much a single-use.

In other words, the EU must corner any general term which does not truly reflect product sustainability. Is this new product marketed as ‘climate-neutral’? Well, it cannot be – there is no such thing.

Consumers are becoming more conscious and aware of the environmental impact of their shopping. The new EU initiative is timelier than ever – and we hope that it will genuinely empower citizens not by putting all the burden of choice on them, but by turning environmental claims into a useful and reliable tool, which will motivate manufacturers to race to the top in terms of sustainability.