European Commission’s Initiative to Regulate Green Claims and Combat Greenwashing

Background: The Challenge of Misleading Green Claims

Consumers currently face significant difficulty navigating the plethora of environmental labels and claims associated with products and services. Studies show that:

• 53% of green claims provide vague, misleading, or unfounded information.
• 40% of these claims lack any supporting evidence.
• Half of all green labels offer weak or no verification at all.
• Within the EU, over 230 sustainability labels and 100 green energy labels exist, with widely differing transparency and reliability standards.

This situation undermines consumer trust and potentially incentivizes companies to engage in greenwashing—misrepresenting their environmental impact or benefits.

Objectives of the EU Proposal on Green Claims

In March 2023, the European Commission adopted a proposal for a Directive on Green Claims designed to:

• Ensure green claims are reliable, comparable, and verifiable across the EU.
• Protect consumers from misinformation and deceptive environmental claims.
• Support the transition to a circular and green economy by empowering consumers with trustworthy information.
• Create a level playing field for businesses committed to genuine environmental performance improvements.

Key Features of the Proposal

The Directive targets explicit environmental claims made voluntarily by companies to consumers regarding:

• The environmental aspects or performance of products or traders.
• Claims not already covered by existing EU regulations.

Examples:

• “Packaging made of 30% recycled plastic”
• “Company’s environmental footprint reduced by 20% since 2015”
• “CO2 emissions linked to this product halved compared to 2020”

Key measures include:

• Clear criteria on how companies must substantiate their environmental claims using robust, science-based, verifiable methods.
• Mandatory independent and accredited verification of environmental claims and labels.
• New governance rules to ensure environmental labeling schemes are transparent, reliable, and robust.

Legislative and Policy Context

• The green claims proposal complements the Directive on Empowering Consumers for the Green Transition (adopted 2022), which enhances consumer protection regarding product durability, reparability, and truthful environmental information.
• It aligns with the European Green Deal and the Circular Economy Action Plan, focusing on substantiating environmental claims with scientific methods.
• Links to other policies include Ecodesign for Sustainable Products, the Farm to Fork Strategy, and frameworks supporting sustainable food systems.
• Together, these initiatives aim to reduce the environmental footprint of EU consumption patterns and contribute to the EU’s climate neutrality goal by 2050. —

Existing Environmental Labels Supported in the Framework

• EU Ecolabel: The official voluntary sustainability label recognizing products with verified low environmental impact.
• Eco-Management and Audit Scheme (EMAS): Supports companies in improving their environmental performance.

Conclusion

The European Commission’s Directive on Green Claims represents a critical step toward combating greenwashing by ensuring that environmental claims made by businesses are truthful, transparent, and scientifically verifiable. Consumers will benefit from clearer, standardized information enabling more sustainable purchasing choices, while genuinely green businesses gain fair competitive advantages in the evolving EU market.

Further Information and Contacts

• Commission’s Press Release on Green Claims (March 2023)
• European Commission Directorate-General for Environment: Contact Europe Direct

This summary reflects the European Commission’s green claims initiative as of June 2024, designed to help stakeholders understand and comply with evolving environmental transparency standards.

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