Is everything really as green as it seems? What is greenwashing?

With the growing global awareness of the need to protect the environment, consumers are increasingly turning to products that feature labels such as “eco” (“eco-friendly packaging“), “natural,” “organic,” and so on. Although environmentally friendly products are usually more expensive, the practice shows that more and more consumers are willing to spend additional money on such products. As this market expands, situations arise where consumers are paying for a label that doesn’t actually describe the product on the packaging, raising concerns about deceptive business practices through the misuse of the best intentions aimed at environmental protection.

At the end of 2021, the EU adopted the Guidance for the Interpretation and Application of the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive, and a whole section of this document is dedicated to so-called “green claims.” Green claims refer to any statements that create the impression among consumers that a certain product has a positive or at least neutral impact on the environment, or that it causes less harm to the environment compared to other competitive products. When these green claims are inaccurate or cannot be objectively verified, this implies to a business practice known as “greenwashing.” However, even though the practice recognizes greenwashing as an unfair, deceptive business practice, the Directive does not explicitly define what is considered as deceptive green marketing, instead, it is interpreted as part of deceptive commercial practices. Therefore, it is not always easy to classify every claim as a deceptive business practice, especially those that are not entirely false but rather “exaggerate” a product’s environmental benefits.

Throughout 2022, the European Commission was actively addressing environmental protection issues by proposing a set of measures that should be part of the Green Deal, aimed, among other things, at ensuring reliable consumer information about market products and their potential environmental benefits.

Considering the above-mentioned active efforts by the European community to introduce regulations aimed at preventing the misuse of green marketing, as well as the adopted plans for the near future, the first results of the implementation of the Directive and aligned local regulations are expected as early as 2023.

These will show that perhaps not everything is as green as it seems.