According to European Commission estimates, roughly half of all green claims in European Union member states — such as “eco”, “ecological product”, “green”, “environmentally friendly”, “sustainable” and “climate friendly” — are vague, misleading or unsubstantiated, and 40% of them are used with no justification whatsoever. This creates confusion for consumers and undermines confidence in the sustainability claims that companies make about their products.
The European Commission has therefore drawn up a proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on the substantiation and communication of explicit environmental claims (the so-called Green Claims Directive).
The draft proposal provides that every company using a green claim for its products or services will have to comply with minimum standards on how such claims are substantiated and on how their conformity with the environmental claim made is communicated and made available for verification. Accordingly, the content of the directive focuses mainly on the substantiation of environmental claims and on communicating and providing that information (that is, the supporting evidence) both to consumers and to the supervisory authorities.
As regards environmental claims, the plan is that they will have to comply with certification schemes verified by a third party and will have to be independently checked, and that such claims will, among other things, have to be based on data and evidence, thereby ensuring that a company's assertion about the green credentials of a product or service is truthful. It should be noted, however, that unlike the ecodesign requirements for products, which are mandatory, whether a company makes environmental claims about its product is entirely up to the company. The new rules will also place an additional administrative burden on the supervisory authorities, since detailed provisions are planned on supervision, the handling of complaints and the imposition of penalties.
Unlike the European Commission's original proposal, the Belgian Presidency's version also plans to bring micro-enterprises within the scope of the directive, yet no assessment was carried out of the potential impact of the requirements laid down on the operation of businesses. The directive also provides for the creation of an additional system of penalties for failure to comply with the requirements, even though existing European Union legislation, such as the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive, already lays down penalties for deliberately misleading consumers.
Latvia supports the aim of the planned directive — to introduce clear rules that would protect consumers from greenwashing, strengthen their rights and promote sustainable consumption and the green circular economy in the European Union. At the same time, however, Latvia takes the view that the solution proposed in the directive will impose too great an administrative burden both on businesses, especially small and medium-sized enterprises and micro-enterprises, and on the supervisory authorities.
It is unacceptable to add to the administrative burden on small businesses, which because of their limited resources often cannot cope with the burden they already carry. Requiring a micro-enterprise to produce the same range of documents and evidence as a large corporation means putting them in a markedly unequal competitive position and holding back the growth of small businesses. In terms of global competitiveness the European Union already lags behind other regions of the world, and it ought to be thinking about reducing the bureaucratic burden rather than increasing it,” stresses Minister for Economics Viktors Valainis.
In view of the above, at this week's meeting of the Environment Council Latvia did not support the compromise text of the Green Claims Directive prepared by the Belgian Presidency. Latvia's view was presented at the meeting by Minister for Climate and Energy Kaspars Melnis; Latvia's position on the draft directive was prepared by the Ministry of Economics and approved by the Cabinet of Ministers. It is important to emphasise that Germany, Slovakia, Austria and Italy also did not support the proposal, as a result of which the Belgian Presidency failed to secure a qualified majority of member states' votes for a general approach. During the meeting the Belgian Presidency amended the text of the directive, setting a period for implementing the requirements that is eight months later for micro-enterprises, which enabled it to win Italy's support and thus also the necessary qualified majority of member states' votes, which also means a mandate for further negotiations with the European Parliament.
Despite the changes made, Latvia maintained its original position, as it was not persuaded that those changes would allay concerns about the administrative burden created by the directive. Latvia will continue to actively voice and defend the interests of Latvian businesses in the further negotiations with the European Commission and the European Parliament. Given that the European Parliament's proposals also leave micro-enterprises outside the scope of the directive, Latvia remains hopeful that during the forthcoming trilogues with the European Parliament it will be possible to make substantial changes to the text of the proposed directive and to achieve an outcome that takes sufficient account of the interests of consumers, businesses and market supervisory authorities alike.
https://data.consilium.europa.eu/doc/document/ST-11312-2024-INIT/en/pdf