§4.1.1 Environmental claims

The expressions ‘environmental claims’ and ‘green claims’ refer to the practice of suggesting or otherwise creating the impression (in a commercial communication, marketing or advertising) that a good or a service has a positive or no impact on the environment or is less damaging to the environment than competing goods or services. This may be due to its composition, how it has been manufactured, how it can be disposed of and the reduction in energy or pollution expected from its use. When such claims are not true or cannot be verified, this practice is often called ‘greenwashing’. The coordinated screening of websites (‘sweep’) that the Commission and national consumer authorities carried out in 2020 confirmed the prevalence of vague, exaggerated, false or deceptive green claims (276). ‘Greenwashing’ in the context of business-to-consumer relations can relate to all forms of business-to-consumer commercial practices concerning the environmental attributes of products. According to the circumstances, this can include all types of statements, information, symbols, logos, graphics and brand names, and their interplay with colours, on packaging, labelling, advertising, in all media (including websites) and made by any organisation, if it qualifies as a ‘trader’ and engages in commercial practices towards consumers. The UCPD does not provide specific rules on environmental claims. However, it provides a legal basis to ensure that traders do not present environmental claims in ways that are unfair to consumers. It does not prohibit the use of ‘green claims’ as long as they are not unfair. On the contrary, the UCPD can help traders investing in the environmental performance of their products by enabling them to communicate these efforts to consumers transparently and by preventing competitors from presenting misleading environmental claims. The New Consumer Agenda (277) and the Circular Economy Action Plan 2020 (278) foresee further proposals to tackle greenwashing. Furthermore, the Commission is working on initiatives such as establishing standards for the certification of carbon removals (279). As regards consumer redress for harm incurred from a breach of the UCPD related to environmental claims, such as compensation for damage, price reduction and contract termination, see section 1.4.3.

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Source: EUR-Lex (Cellar) · retrieved 2026-09-07