The European Parliament has passed a directive that will ban misleading advertising about environmental friendliness and sustainability. The now adopted directive against greenwashing and misleading product information (“Directive on empowering consumers for the green transition”) contains provisions in the following areas:

• General environmental statements such as “climate neutral”, “eco”, “natural” or “environmentally friendly” will be inadmissible in the future unless they can be proven. This includes not only literal statements, but also those using images or graphics.
• The directive also contains some fundamental prohibitions. Statements about climate neutrality based on compensation are therefore per se inadmissible on the basis of the directive.
• Another point of regulation concerns so-called sustainability seals. There are currently a large number of environmental labels in the EU member states that contain very different statements. They difficult to compare and the verifiability is not always guaranteed. Based on the new directive, only seals that are based on a recognized certification system or have been introduced by government bodies should be approved.
• Another point of the directive concerns statements about the service life of technical products. Statements on this need to be substantiated in the future. The directive also includes the requirement that information about a replacement (e.g. printer cartridges) should only be given when necessary.
• Finally, warranty information must be made more clearly visible in the future. A unified label will give greater prominence to an extended warranty period.

The Directive still needs to be confirmed by the Council and will then have to be implemented into national law by the EU member states within 24 months. The adopted text of the draft directive can be found here. In addition to the Greenwashing Directive, a draft directive on environmental claims (“Green Claims Directive”) is currently being discussed at EU level. This also affects green washing issues. It will contain further specifications on the conditions for the use of environmental information and will supplement and specify the requirements of the Greenwashing Directive in this respect. Both legal acts therefore intertwine.