The European Parliament approved a directive aimed at protecting consumers from misleading marketing.
ADVERTISEMENTThe European Parliament on Wednesday gave the final green light to a new law that will ban misleading environmental claims on products and improve labelling.
Members voted overwhelmingly in favour of the directive which aims to protect consumers from misleading marketing practices and help them make better purchasing choices.
"To achieve this, a number of problematic marketing habits related to greenwashing and the early obsolescence of goods will be added to the EU list of banned commercial practices," the parliament said in a statement.
This means that terms including “environmentally friendly”, “biodegradable”, and “climate neutral” should no longer be used in advertising or on packaging without concrete evidence.
When the new rules are introduced in member states, only sustainability labels based on official certification schemes or established by public authorities will be allowed in the EU.
In addition, the directive will ban claims that a product has a “climate-neutral”, “reduced”, or “climate-positive” impact on the environment because of CO2 emissions offsetting schemes.
The EU said that while investments by companies in climate protection projects were welcome and could still be communicated, they could no longer fool people into believing a product was “good because the company planted trees somewhere”.
It said this was a great success for the environment, the climate, and consumers.
Another important objective of the new law is making producers and consumers focus more on the durability of goods. In the future, guarantee information will have to more visible and a new, harmonised label will be created to give greater prominence to goods with an extended guarantee period.
Approval of the directive comes after months of negotiations among EU institutions and member states as to how environmental claims should be regulated.
Member states now have two years to introduce the new rules.