The European Union’s environment ministers, meeting in Luxembourg on Monday 17 June, reached a political agreement (‘general approach’) of the EU Council on the proposal for a directive on green claims.
Presented in July 2020 (see EUROPE 12534/20) by the European Commission, this directive aims to tackle greenwashing by requiring companies to explain their claims concerning the environmental impact of their products and services.
“Across the EU as a whole, 53% of environmental claims are considered to be vague, misleading and unfounded”, said Alain Maron, the Belgian Minister for the Environment of the Brussels-Capital Region, who chaired the meeting. 40% of these allegations are “totally unfounded”. The aim of the text is to enable consumers to make informed choices.
The Council’s ‘general approach’ draws a distinction between national and regional public labelling schemes, which will be exempt from third-party verification, and explicit environmental claims or labels that companies use to promote the greenness of their product or service. EN ISO 14024 type 1 eco-labelling schemes will be exempt from verification if they are officially recognised in a Member State and comply with the new rules.
The directive sets minimum requirements for the substantiation, communication and verification of explicit environmental claims. Any claim will have to be verified by independent experts before being published.
Verification of climate-related claims is included in this directive, which is to regulate to regulate carbon credit claims. To do this, the Council wants to distinguish between contribution claims (to contribute to climate action) and offset claims (to balance out an emissions share). These will no longer suffice, as companies will have to prove a carbon neutrality target and show progress towards decarbonisation.
The Member States insisted on the addition, in the Council compromise, of measures to reduce the administrative burden on farmers and businesses such as SMEs and microenterprises. A simplified procedure will exempt certain claims from third-party verification, but will require eligible companies to complete a technical document. Microenterprises will have an extra eight months to comply with the rules. The European Commissioner for the Environment, Virginijus Sinkevičius, gave assurances that the Commission would support the Council on these issues.
This agreement enables the Council to begin discussions with the European Parliament, which adopted its position on 12 March (see EUROPE 13369/26). (Original version in French by Florent Servia)