Practical Guide To Environmental Claims

26 May 2023

Practical Guide to Environmental Claims

Guide

The new Guide to Environmental Claims was published yesterday to provide a framework for business marketing practices. It was written by representatives of professionals and consumer representatives who participate in the National Consumer Council (CNC).

This document is a lever of understanding for the consumer to help him understand what he reads around the products marketed at the time of purchase. It is also a guide for professionals to give them clear definitions and frame the terms they can use to differentiate their products.

Thus, it gives the recommendations of the CNC for the voluntary use of environmental claims and defines the conditions of use of the most used such as "organic", "sustainable", "natural" or "without". It explains more fundamentally what an environmental claim is and how to establish a fair one.

Legal framework

This edition also gives the legal framework in which it falls. Indeed, one of the five axes of the law of February 10, 2020 relating to the fight against waste and for a circular economy, known as the AGEC law, is based on consumer information and this guide supplements the requirements already put in place. in place.

The Triman, for example, has been guiding consumers in their sorting actions since September 2022. Article 13 on the obligation to inform consumers about the environmental qualities and characteristics entered into force in January 2023 and explains the information to be provided to consumers at the time of purchase. It also prohibits the mention of “biodegradable”, “environmentally friendly” or any other equivalent environmental claim on a product or packaging. This guide provides details on equivalent claims.
In addition, the law of August 22, 2021 called “Climate and resilience” is also part of the desire to give consumers more information to help them in their choices. This guide is therefore a tool to support the requirements of this law which also attacks greenwashing as a dubious commercial practice.

Greenwashing

The Practical Guide to Environmental Claims is published just after the results of the DGCCRF survey dedicated to checking environmental claims on 1,100 companies between 2021 and 2022. It appears that a quarter of the companies checked were "anomalous", because the claims were not supported by well-founded and proven elements.

The European Union is also tackling this subject since a proposal on Green claims was adopted last March as part of the Circular Economy Action Plan. It regulates the quality and precision of the information to be provided in order to be able to affix a claim or a label to a product. This proposal complements and further operationalizes the proposal for a Directive on empowering consumers in the green transition which also provides a framework for environmental claims.