§4.1.1.1 Interplay with other EU legislation on environmental claims

Article 3(4) and Recital 10 set out the principle that the UCPD complements other EU legislation as a ‘safety net’ ensuring that a high common level of consumer protection against unfair commercial practices is maintained in all sectors. In the area of environmental claims, UCPD complements instruments such as: — Regulation (EC) No 66/2010 of the European Parliament and of the Council (280) on the EU Ecolabel; — Regulation (EU) 2017/1369 of the European Parliament and of the Council (281) setting a framework for energy labelling; — Directive 1999/94/EC relating to the availability of consumer information on fuel economy and CO2 emissions in respect of the marketing of new passenger cars; — Directive 2012/27/EU on energy efficiency (282), as amended by Directive (EU) 2018/2002 (283); — Directive 2010/31/EU on the energy performance of buildings (284); — Regulation (EU) 2020/740 on the labelling of tyres with respect to fuel efficiency and other parameters (285); — Directive (EU) 2019/944 of the European Parliament and of the Council (286) on common rules for the internal market in electricity; — Directive 2009/125/EC establishing a framework for the setting of ecodesign requirements for energy-related products (287); — Regulation (EU) 2018/848 of the European Parliament and of the Council (288) on organic production and labelling of organic products; — Directive (EU) 2018/2001 of the European Parliament and of the Council (289) on the promotion of the use of energy from renewable sources; — Directive 2009/73/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council (290) on common rules for the internal market in natural gas. Here are a few examples of the interplay between the UCPD and specific EU legislation concerning environmental claims. For example: — Regulation (EU) 2017/1369 setting a framework for energy labelling prohibits additional labels and symbols that in themselves may mislead consumers with regard to consumption of energy or other resources (291). However, it does not include specific rules on what is considered misleading. On this point, the UCPD can come into play. For example, a court considered the use of the slogan ‘very energy saving’ for a refrigerator/freezer in energy efficiency class ‘A’ a misleading commercial practice under the UCPD. 308 out of 543 appliances on the market at the time belonged to class ‘A+’ and 17 % of all available appliances were in energy efficiency class ‘A++’ (292). — A tyre manufacturer had its own tyre label for marketing tyres. The label was intended to depict a tyre's driving capabilities in winter conditions. The company’s own label is very similar to the official EU tyre label (293), which has been compulsory as of November 2012. The tyre manufacturer marketed its tyres using the proprietary label, which may have given consumers the misleading impression that the tyres complied with the testing and classification requirements ofthe EU tyre label. Additionally, the tyre label did not give a reliable picture of the tyres’ properties, in comparison to the tyres of other manufacturers that carried the EU label. A court prohibited the tyre manufacturer from using the company’s own tyre labels in marketing that targets consumers, unless the company clearly distinguished this label from the EU's tyre label (294). — Under Directive (EU) 2019/944 electricity suppliers need to specify in their billing information the ‘environmental impact of electricity, in at least terms of CO2 emissions and the radioactive waste resulting from the electricity produced by the overall energy mix of the supplier over the preceding year’ and supplier companies will need to specify the actual CO2 footprint of their energy mix in accordance with its Annex I (5) (b). — A trader advertised its diesel cars to consumers as ‘environmentally friendly’, while in reality the exhaust gas emission tests were manipulated through the use of defeat device software (‘Dieselgate’ scandal). Claims about the environmental features of the cars in question were displayed on the trader’s website, advertising materials and in product listings. The Court of Justice confirmed in its judgement of 17 December 2020 in Case C-693/18 that the defeat device software was illegal under EU type approval legislation (295). From the UCPD perspective, the practice in question raises concerns under Article 5 (practice contrary to professional diligence), Article 6 (providing consumers with misleading information about the main characteristics of the product, such as the advertised environmental impact of the product) and Annex I point No 4 (claiming that a product has been approved by a public body without complying with the terms of the approval). National consumer authorities have issued fines on the basis of these provisions (296).

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