CEC complains of loophole in EU greenwashing proposal
The European Commission has published a proposal for a directive to protect consumers against exaggerated claims of environmental benefits in product marketing.
It released the document on March 22, asking the European Parliament and the European Council to approve the proposal and bring it into law. It said its main intention in publishing this proposal for a Green Claims Directive was to protect consumers against false information from sellers.
However, footwear industry body CEC and its leather counterpart COTANCE are among a wide range of organisations that have signed a joint statement to complain that many online sellers will be able to sidestep the Green Claims Directive and make false claims about their products without having to face any consequences.
The Commission said it had committed in its Green Deal (presented at the end of 2019) to ensuring that buyers receive “reliable, comparable and verifiable information to enable them to make more sustainable decisions and to reduce the risk of greenwashing”. It went on to make combatting greenwashing a priority in its New Circular Economy Action Plan of March 2020 and the New Consumer Agenda of November the same year.
It has recognised now that a lack of trust in the credibility of environmental claims and the proliferation of misleading commercial practices related to the sustainability of products, including footwear, are hampering consumers’ ability to make “environmentally sustainable consumption choices at the point of sale”.
In the joint statement CEC, COTANCE and the other signatories have claimed that the proposal contains a serious loophole. They said that online sales of goods, described in whatever terms the sellers choose to use, will continue. And if those sellers are located outside the European Union and have no EU-based operator that can be held liable for their activities, the European Commission will not be able to prevent them from greenwashing.
The signatories acknowledged that existing legislation imposes some new rules on online platforms but not to all. Current legislation does not clearly allocate liability online when there is no economic operator in the EU. “This remains a legal loophole to be fixed,” the statement said.
Image: Expo Riva Schuh.
