On January 17, 2024, the European Parliament gave final approval to a directive that will improve product labeling and prohibit the use of misleading environmental claims.
The directive is Empowering consumers for the green transition and aims to protect consumers from misleading marketing practices and help them make better purchasing choices. To achieve this goal, the EU will add to the list of prohibited business practices a number of problematic marketing habits related to greenwashing and early obsolescence of goods.
More accurate and reliable advertising
The new regulations will make product labeling clearer and more credible by prohibiting the use of general environmental claims such as "environmentally friendly," "natural," "biodegradable," "biobased," "climate-neutral," or "eco" without evidence.
Given the proliferation of sustainable labels and the confusion caused by the failure to use comparative data, the use of sustainable labels will now also be regulated. In the future, the EU will only allow sustainability labels based on official certification schemes or those established by public authorities.
In addition, the Directive would prohibit claims that a product has a neutral, reduced or positive impact on the environment as a result of an emissions offset program.
Spotlight on Durability
Another important goal of the new regulations is to make producers and consumers more concerned about the durability of goods. In the future, any warranty information will have to be more clearly visible and a new uniform label will be created to give more prominence to goods with extended warranties.
The new regulations will also prohibit unfounded durability claims (e.g., claiming that a washing machine will last 5,000 wash cycles if this is not the case under normal circumstances), prompting replacement of consumables before they are non-essential (e.g., this is often the case with printer ink), and claiming that goods are repairable when they are not.
The new Directive is to be used in conjunction with the Green Claims Directive, which is currently being discussed at the Parliamentary Committee stage. The forthcoming Green Claims Directive will be more specific and spell out in greater detail the conditions for the use of environmental claims.
The directive now needs final approval from the Council, after which it will be published on the official website and member states will have 24 months to transpose it into national law.
