Weakened EU greenwashing rules attacked by consumer groups

Rules announced in Brussels aimed at preventing greenwashing have been attacked by consumer and environmental groups for being watered down to such an extent that they are now “too vague” to have an impact.

The European Commission has said that companies using unsubstantiated environmental claims to market their products could be sanctioned with penalties amounting to at least 4 per cent of revenue or exclusions of up to a year from public procurement processes or subsidies, under new rules proposed on Wednesday.

But heavy lobbying from industry bodies meant the guidelines had been weakened to such an extent during the legislative process that the proposal no longer had clear enough rules to prevent misleading claims, such as company’s saying their product was merely eco-friendly or “carbon neutral”, the independent monitoring and campaign groups said.

Draft copies of the commission’s proposal, earlier reported on by the Financial Times, indicated that it would use a methodology known as the product environmental footprint to assess green claims about products, but this has been removed from the final directive.

Instead the commission said it would present legislation in future “to complement the requirements on substantiation for certain types of claims”.

“[The commission] got so much pushback that they removed everything that was concrete, left the principles and left a scene-setting for more to come,” said Margaux Le Gallou, programme manager at the NGO Environmental Coalition on Standards. “It’s too vague with too much left to later.”

Carbon Market Watch and the European consumer organisation BEUC both said that the only way to address the issue of unproven “carbon neutrality” claims made by companies on their products was to ban them entirely.

“We are worried that [this proposal] could backfire and create legitimacy for these claims that amount to greenwashing” because the rules were not strong enough to ensure the claims were true, said Gilles Dufrasne, global carbon markets lead at Carbon Market Watch.

Greenwashing has climbed up global policymakers’ agendas as companies increasingly respond to demand from consumers for products that will not damage the environment by marketing them as “100 per cent vegan” or “zero emissions”.

The UK’s competition authority announced in January that it would investigate green claims in household products after it found that 91 per cent of all dishwashing items and 100 per cent of toilet products were marketed as green or environmentally friendly.

Virginijus Sinkevičius, the EU’s environment commissioner, said the EU’s green claims rules, which will have to be agreed by the European parliament and 27 member states, amounted to a de facto ban as companies wanting to use eco-labels would have to comply with the rules or would not be able to use them at all.

“You’re basically not allowed . . . to use [an eco-label] unless it’s scientifically approved and logically sound and transparent,” he said.

Sinkevičius gave examples of fashion and airline claims as those which were prone to “being unclear and ambiguous and misleading to consumers”.

The directive also provides carve-outs for sectors such as financial services and some foods, which could be governed by other EU rules.

Airlines for Europe, the industry lobbying body, said it supported “the principle of providing consumers with reliable information about the efficiency and environmental footprint of their flights”.

EuroCommerce, which represents retailers, said the industry was working on more sustainable product ranges but “clear rules are needed which enable communication with consumers, avoid imposing unintended barriers and facilitate efforts to offer consumers the products and services they need”.

The EU’s proposal comes amid a wider pushback against Brussels’ bureaucratic environmental legislation from countries such as Germany and Italy who want to protect their industries and guard against imposing too much red tape on businesses.

Referring to recent rules to make buildings more energy efficient and ban combustion engines in the bloc, Italy’s prime minister Giorgia Meloni said last week that her government’s goal “is to deliver cleaner earth to the next generation, but without devastating our production system and creating new unemployment”.

Additional reporting by Amy Kazmin in Rome