Proposal complementing the Directive on consumer empowerment for the green transition.
In March 2023, the European Commission presented a proposal to regulate environmental claims. The proposed Green Claims Directive complements the February 2024 Directive on Empowering Consumers for the Green Transition. The latter Directive establishes requirements on environmental claims and prohibits generic claims based on excellent environmental performance. The proposal for a Directive on environmental claims complements the requirements of this Directive and addresses specific aspects and requirements for explicit environmental claims.
This new proposal for a Directive aims to avoid misinformation and prevent greenwashing by seeking to achieve transparent marketing of products and to ensure that claims included on labels are verifiable, reliable and comparable. To this end, companies must include substantiated claims according to established requirements and the information used to substantiate them must be scientifically based. In addition, explicit environmental claims must be assessed to substantiate them, taking into account the life cycle of the product or trader. This assessment should enable the identification of environmental impacts and aspects of the product or trader that affect its environmental performance. For comparative environmental claims, it should be ensured that they can be adequately compared.
Furthermore, claims must be assessed and also verified by an accredited third party, and information on the substantiation must also be communicated to consumers.
This Directive applies to voluntary explicit environmental claims, as well as to unregulated voluntary environmental labelling schemes. Environmental claims subject to European legislation are not covered by this Directive. With regard to labelling schemes, from now on only those established by public authorities, or schemes based on a certificate of conformity issued by an independent verifier, will be permitted from this point onwards. Other labels that are already subject to European legislation (e.g. the Ecolabel) will also be permitted due to their foundation in European legislation.
Member States must implement procedures to verify the justifications and the communication of claims by a verifier issuing a certificate of conformity with the requirements for the label or claim.
This Directive applies to all companies that market products or services in the European Union and that include environmental claims on their products or services.
Exemptions apply to microenterprises, which are exempted from the substantiation requirements, unless they request verification on a voluntary basis.For further information about our labelling services and environmental declarations, please do not hesitate to contact one of our advisors or visit our website via the following link:https://kaeltia.com/en/