General environmental claims are prohibited in all cases where the trader cannot demonstrate the recognized environmental excellence to which the claim relates.
The EmpCo directive entered into force on 26 March 2024. Following its transposition into national law, it will apply to companies from 27 September 2026 and contains, among other things, the prohibition of general environmental claims for which no provide evidence.
Miriam Thiemann, responsible for Sustainable Consumption at the European Consumer Organization (BEUC)explains why labels like “climate neutral” or “climate positive”, which are based on compensation, They will soon disappear from supermarketswith a view to new EU regulations, aimed at supporting consumers in the ecological transition:
“At this moment almost you can have the impression that you can consume and buy whatever you want without harming the climate. “You can find cheeses, flights, bank accounts that say ‘oh, this is climate neutral.'”
“The company pays another supplier for the calls carbon credits. This means that another project somewhere is doing something to supposedly reduce or eliminate emissions. First of all, from a scientific point of view. It doesn’t work like that: you can broadcast a lot here from a plane and somewhere else eliminate something and say that, in general, it has no impact. There are also many doubts about the providers of carbon offsets“, say Miriam.
“Often the problem is that companies just say ‘oh, well, if I can pay money for it and get away with it, then I don’t have to do as much effort to reduce emissions in my own operations.'”
“It could even slow down emissions reductions because companies may just pay instead of taking real action. So it actually defeats the overall goal of carbon neutrality as a society.”
