Position paper - Green Claims Landing Zones

The upcoming stages of the EU institutions’ trilogue on the Green Claims Directive are crucial to creating a workable framework that gives companies a level playing field on environmental claims and avoids greenwashing. Key recommendations for the final legislation include:

1. Substantiate claims in a reasonable and science-based manner, accounting for their weight, and react based on equivalency;
2. Accept product labels that are well known internationally and present a product’s rating based on aggregated indicators of environmental impacts;
3. Allow carbon offsetting claims to counterbalance corporate emissions in the interim to net zero and to address residual emissions;
4. Remove the revision clause that opens the possibility of a ban for hazardous substances in category 2 and 3, which would be better addressed in a more pertinent legislation such as the Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH); and
5. Include a presumption of conformity for methodologies that are widely accepted.