There is no doubt European consumers want to buy products that are more sustainable. But currently this is no easy task. Shops are flooded with various claims praising the environmental aspects of products. The EU is working on a solution that – if done right – would provide consumers with essential and reliable information about a product’s properties.
Many green claims are unsubstantiated and unclear. Last year, the European Commission and national consumer authorities found out that 42 percent of green claims in Europe were “exaggerated, false or deceptive”. This makes well-intentioned consumers vulnerable to greenwashing. Not to mention this could be demotivating for otherwise passionate consumers, hampering the green transition.
The Green Claims Regulation expected by the end of the month (30 November) could fix the problem. This piece of legislation will require that companies substantiate their green claims with robust and common methods.
But the main instrument foreseen to make it happen could end up just adding to consumers’ confusion. It is the Product Environmental Footprint method (PEF), which could be a powerful tool to communicate to consumers the environmental impacts of products (e.g. through a graded label from A to G). But some pieces of the puzzle are missing.
PEF: an incomplete puzzle
Today companies are assessing the greenness of their products in different ways. One of the potential benefits of the PEF method is to require all companies to use the same rules, making it easier for consumers to compare products from different companies. In addition, as PEF looks at the full life cycle of products, it helps avoiding trade-offs between impacts. This can be the case for instance if greenhouse gas emissions are reduced at the expense of increasing water use.
However, PEF cannot work on its own and in its current state.
The method still lacks robust indicators for several key environmental issues such as land degradation, biodiversity, pesticides effects, imported deforestation, use of hazardous chemicals or release of microplastics.
Therefore, it needs to be improved and complemented by other tools.
The cases of textiles and food
Let’s take textiles. Although the use of hazardous substances to manufacture clothes are a major cause of concern for the environment and health, their impact on humans and ecosystems is not sufficiently covered by PEF. The release of microplastics remains also unaddressed, despite synthetic textiles contributing to more than a third of primary microplastics release to the worlds’ oceans. Microplastics should be integrated in the environmental footprint profile of clothes, not just seen as additional and voluntary.
The PEF rules so far overly reward fibres made from recycled plastic bottles. This ignores the EU Textiles Strategy’s warning that this practice may mislead consumers and contradict the goals of a circular economy. Bottles can be recycled into bottles many times, but once they are converted into textiles they will likely be incinerated or landfilled. In the case of food, PEF seems to favour intensive farming and penalise organic food. The approach fails to consider the positive externalities associated with extensive and organic agricultural practices (e.g. on biodiversity and soil health). It also overlooks key environmental issues, such as land degradation, biodiversity losses and pesticide effects. So in its current form, PEF treats a conventionally produced apple as the equal of an organic apple. This is nothing more than misleading.
The PEF method should be improved
After collecting information about all aspects, they need to be weighed according to the PEF method. But how to remain fair and nuanced in this process? Deciding which are the most important environmental impacts for products should be done with care and in an open, democratic process consulting all relevant players, including policy makers and civil society. But the process has so far been driven by industry representatives, with civil society in the passenger seat and policy makers underrepresented.
The Green Claims initiative should reinforce, not undermine trustworthy Ecolabels
The EU Ecolabel is one good way for integrating additional information which cannot be measured by the PEF method. This label and other trustworthy ecolabels such as the Blue Angel or the Nordic Swan Ecolabel are based on robust standards. They take a life-cycle perspective, restricting hazardous chemicals, and rewarding products that are more circular, climate friendly and less polluting. In shops, they guide consumers towards truly green products through a simple logo.
To help consumers make truly greener choices, the Green Claims Initiative should recognise the EU Ecolabel and equivalent labels as robust methods to substantiate green claims. A lack of recognition could end up making the EU Ecolabel less attractive for companies, who may be inclined to comply with less ambitious PEF-based labels. As a result, consumers might see less ecolabelled products available in the shops over time.
But it does not have to be that way. The EU Commission should strive to make the Green Claims Initiative an ambitious legislation which does not limit its scope to PEF but goes beyond.
If consumers are given the impression that a method covers all aspects of a product’s environmental footprint, this should be the case.
It is without a doubt a complex task, but a necessary one to offer consumers accurate environmental information when shopping.