ECOS | Environmental Coalition on Standards

22 March 2023

EU plans to curb greenwashing too good to be true – Green Claims Directive proposal ‘far from the real (green) deal’

By Margaux Le Gallou
By Kasia Koniecka

Meant to prevent greenwashing by giving consumers reliable environmental information on products, the proposal falls short of its original ambition and fails to offer a robust, harmonised methodology for calculating environmental impacts.

The European Commission has just presented its proposal for the long-awaited Substantiating Green Claims Directive[1]. Environmental market leaders, and consumers wanting to buy sustainable products, are being actively undermined by the Commission’s proposal.

After months of intense lobbying, what could have been legislation contributing to providing reliable environmental information to consumers was substantially watered down.

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The new Directive fails to impose an EU-wide method to calculate the environmental impacts behind the omnipresent green claims on products. Instead, the proposed legislation opens the way for companies to cherry-pick methodologies that show the most ‘promising’ marketing results. This means that environmental claims will not be comparable.

The proposal puts forward certain improvements to the status quo but remains vague on how they will be implemented. For example, claims will need to be third-party verified prior to publication, while those relying on carbon offsets will need to report information on offsetting and actual greenhouse gas emissions separately. However, climate neutrality claims as such are not banned, even though they are a form of greenwashing, as revealed by a recent report from ECOS[2].

It is now up to the European Parliament and the Council to improve the proposal so that it is of value to consumers, companies producing sustainable products, and the environment. In order for claims to be robust and comparable, harmonised methodologies at the EU level will be crucial[3].

ECOS sees particular potential in further developing the existing EU Product Environmental Footprint method[4], which could help ensure a common methodology for substantiating life cycle impacts. This should be done by a truly inclusive and transparent Consultation Forum on Green Claims, with active participation from civil society and member states.

 

Margaux Le Gallou, Programme Manager for Environmental Information and Assessment at ECOS – Environmental Coalition on Standards, said:

Tackling misleading green claims is crucial to ensure consumers get reliable information and are empowered to make sustainable choices. Sadly, without harmonised methodologies at the EU level, the new Directive will provide little clarity to consumers and business, and will only complicate the job of market surveillance authorities. Today, most green claims are too good to be true and the proposal is… far from the real (green) deal.

Mathieu Rama, Programme Manager for Sustainable Electronics at ECOS – Environmental Coalition on Standards, said:

Too teeny and timid step from the Commission. The new proposal limits the obligation to provide repair services to products already covered by ecodesign repairability requirements.

We need all products to be repairable and all actors to have a role – including end-users, independent repairers, and second-hand operators!

 

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From green claims to green actions, the Directive on Common Rules Promoting the Repair of Goods was also announced this morning. ECOS and its partners in the Right to Repair Europe campaign welcome this attempt to make repairs more accessible to the benefit of consumers and the environment alike but warn that these changes are only a drop in the bucket that makes the right to repair a reality.

This proposal is the EU’s first direct effort to increase European consumer awareness of their options regarding repair, which is vital to a circular economy. NGOs welcome, in particular, the obligation for each Member State to create an online platform listing repairers, refurbishers, and used-device buyers. Such a registry will help consumers navigate their options when seeking repair, simplify circular behaviours, and legitimise the role of independent repairers.

However, campaigners fear many obligations towards producers may be fraught with loopholes and easily circumvented. Currently, the so-called ‘obligation’ to repair is limited to products already subject to repairability requirements, sparing more problematic product groups. It is further only obliged upon consumer’s request, banking on lower consumer awareness, which does little to shift away from the status quo.

 

Notes to editors:
  1. EC PR – Consumer protection: enabling sustainable choices and ending greenwashing, HERE
  2. More on carbon neutral claims and how to ensure new laws and standards do not rubberstamp greenwashing, HERE
  3. In its 2021 report, ‘Too good to be true? A study of green claims on plastic products’, ECOS provides recommendations on how to best communicate on a number of environmental aspects, including recyclability, reusability, or recycled content. Building on the UNEP Fundamental Principles for providing product sustainability information, ECOS wants to see policymakers and standardisers eliminate loose definitions, ensure that the circular hierarchy is respected, and assess characteristics based on real-life conditions using robust accounting and verification methods to ensure evaluation and transparency of claims.
  4. PEF is the European method to measure the environmental impacts of products throughout their whole lifetime. It covers 16 categories of impacts: climate change, ozone depletion, human toxicity (cancer and noncancer), particulate matter, ionising radiation (human health), photochemical ozone formation (human health), acidification, eutrophication (terrestrial, freshwater, and marine), ecotoxicity (freshwater), land use, water use, resource use (minerals and metals) and resource use (fossils).
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ECOS is co-funded by the European Commission and EFTA Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or EISMEA. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.

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