Changes from plenary report to adopted text

RemovedRecital 32: (32) The Commission Recommendation (EU) 2021/2279 contains guidance on how to measure the life cycle environmental performance of specific products or organisations and how to develop Product Environmental Footprint Category Rules (PEFCRs) and Organisation Environmental Footprint Sectorial Rules (OEFSRs) that allow comparison of products to a benchmark. Such category rules for specific products or traders can be used to support the substantiation of claims in line with the requirements of this Directive. Therefore, the Commission should be empowered to adopt delegated acts to establish product group or sector specific rules where this may have added value. However, for some product groups, the PEF method is not suitable for providing a holistic environmental assessment. In case the Product Environmental Footprint method does not yet cover an impact category, which is relevant for a product group, the adoption of PEFCR may take place only once these new relevant environmental impact categories have been added. For example, as regards marine fisheries, the PEFCR should for example reflect the fisheries-specific environmental impact categories, in particular the sustainability of the targeted stock. Concerning space, the PEFCR should reflect defence and space-specific environmental impact categories, including the orbital space use. As regards food and agricultural products, biodiversity and nature protection, as well as farming practices, including positive externalities of, ex…

Added(9a) Within the context of the European Green Deal, the EU Action Plan Towards Zero Pollution for Air, Water and Soil (COM 2021/400), the European Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability (COM/2020/667) and the European Union Strategic Approach to Pharmaceuticals in the Environment (COM/2019/128), the healthcare sector plays a relevant role in reducing environmental pressures. In that context, establishing a proper regulatory framework for using green claims relating to sustainability, biodegradability, circularity and origin of the product’s components both for medicinal products, in accordance with Directive 2001/83/EC, and medical devices, in accordance with Regulation (EU) 2017/745, is crucial in order to encourage companies to contribute to environmental objectives and guarantee reliable communication to consumers. [Am. 6]

RemovedRecital 32 a (new): (32a) In order to ensure the integrity, impartiality and high quality of the substantiation of environmental claims, and to ensure that the requirements for the substantiation result in a better understanding of environmental impacts by consumers, it is important that those requirements for the substantiation of environmental claims are developed involving a balanced set of stakeholders, such as consumer organisations, environmental non-governmental organisations, operators of labelling schemes and competent bodies, in addition to industry representatives, including micro, small and medium-sized enterprises and craft industry representatives, trade unions, traders, retailers, importers. For this purpose, the Commission should establish a consultation forum, the role of which will be to provide opinions on whether existing rules and methods are suitable for substantiating specific environmental claims, and to be consulted on the preparation of the revision or the development of new delegated acts.

Added(10) In addition, this Directive shall not apply to sustainability information involving messages or representations that may be either mandatory or voluntary pursuant to the Union or national rules for financial services, such as rules relating to banking, credit, insurance and re-insurance, occupational or personal pensions, securities, investment funds, investment firms, payment, portfolio management and investment advice, including the services listed in Annex I to Directive 2013/36 of the European Parliament and of the Council, as well as settlement and clearing activities and advisory, intermediation and other auxiliary financial services, including standards or certification schemes relating to such financial services.

RemovedRecital 33: (33) Since Directive 2005/29/EC already applies to misleading environmental claims, it enables the national courts and administrative authorities to stop and prohibit such claims. For example, in order to comply with Directive 2005/29/EC, environmental claims should relate only to aspects that are significant in terms of the product’s or trader’s environmental impact. Environmental claims and labelling schemes should also be clear and unambiguous regarding which aspects of the product or trader they refer to and should not omit or hide important information about the environmental performance of the product that consumers need in order to make informed choices. The wording, imagery and overall product presentation, including the taglines, layout, choice of colours, images, pictures, sounds, symbols, trademark or labels, should provide a truthful and accurate representation of the scale of the environmental benefit achieved, and should not overstate the environmental benefit achieved. Where applicable, information about the exact amount of a product’s certified material content, a feature around which certain types of labelling schemes operate, should not be omitted, especially when the minimum certified content could be zero.

Added(11) Furthermore, this Directive should not apply to environmental information reported by undertakings that apply European sustainability reporting standards on a mandatory or voluntary basis in accordance with Directive 2013/34/EU and sustainability information reported on a voluntary basis by undertakings defined in articles 3(1), 3(2) or 3(3) of this Directive where that information is reported in accordance with standards referred to in Articles 29b or 29c of Directive 2013/34/EU or in accordance with other international, European or national sustainability reporting standards or guidelines.

RemovedRecital 34: (34) Where the explicit environmental claim concerns a final product and relevant environmental impacts or environmental aspects of such product occur at the use phase or at the end of life and consumers can influence such environmental impacts or environmental aspects via appropriate behaviour, such as, for example, correct waste sorting or impacts of use patterns on product’s longevity, the claim should also include information explaining to consumers how their behaviour can positively contribute to the protection of the environment.

Added(12) Offers to purchase goods or receive services conditional on the fulfilment of environmental criteria defined by the seller or service provider or offers where consumers receive more favourable contractual terms or prices upon the fulfilment of such criteria, for example the so-called green loans, green home insurance or financial service products with similar rewards for environmental actions or behaviour should not be subject to the rules of this Directive.

RemovedRecital 36: (36) Consumers should have easy access to the information on the product or the trader that is the subject of the explicit environmental claim, including directly on the product or accompanying the product, and regarding information substantiating the claim applicable to the product. This information should also consider needs of older consumers. For that purpose, traders should either provide this information in a physical form or provide a weblink, QR code, digital product passport or equivalent leading to a website where more detailed information on the substantiation of the explicit environmental claim is made available in at least one of the official languages of the Member State where the claim is made. In order to facilitate the enforcement of this Directive, the weblink, QR code or equivalent should also ensure easy access to the certificate of conformity regarding the substantiation of the explicit environmental claim and the contact information of the verifier who drew up that certificate. The underlying studies, assessments, methodologies or calculations should be made publicly available, unless the information is a trade secret in line with Article 2, paragraph 1 of Directive (EU) 2016/94346.

Added(13) In case future Union legislation lays down rules on environmental claims, environmental labels, or on the assessment or communication of environmental impacts, environmental aspects or environmental performance of certain products or traders in specific sectors, for example the announced “Count Emissions EU”, the forthcoming Commission proposal on a legislative framework for a Union sustainable food system, the Eco-design for Sustainable Products Regulation or Regulation (EU) No 1007/2011 of the European Parliament and of the Council, those rules should be applied to the explicit environmental claims in question instead of the rules set out in this Directive. [Am. 7]

RemovedRecital 37: (37) In order to avoid potential disproportionate impacts on the microenterprises, these smallest companies should be exempted from the requirements of Article 5 linked to information on the substantiation of explicit environmental claims unless these enterprises wish to obtain a certificate of conformity of explicit environmental claim that will be recognised by the competent authorities across the Union.

Added(14) The proposal for a Directive on empowering consumers for the green transition which amends Directive 2005/29/EC, sets out a number of specific requirements on environmental claims and prohibits generic environmental claims which are not based on recognised excellent environmental performance relevant to the claim. Examples of such generic environmental claims are ‘environmentally friendly’, ‘eco-friendly’, ‘eco’, ‘green’, ‘nature’s friend’, ‘ecological’ and, ‘environmentally correct’, ‘climate friendly’, ‘gentle on the environment’, ‘carbon friendly’, ‘energy efficient’, ‘biodegradable’, ‘biobased’ or similar statements that suggest or create the impression of excellent environmental performance. This Directive should complement the requirements set out in that proposal by addressing specific aspects and requirements for explicit environmental claims as regards their substantiation, communication and verification. The requirements set out in this Directive should apply to specific aspects of explicit environmental claims and will prevail over the requirements set out in Directive 2005/29/EC with regard to those aspects in case of conflict, pursuant to Article 3(4) of that Directive. [Am. 8]

RemovedRecital 41: (41) The environmental labels often aim at providing consumers with an aggregated scoring presenting a cumulative environmental impact of products or traders to allow for direct comparisons between products or traders. Such aggregated scoring however presents risks of misleading consumers as the aggregated indicator may dilute negative environmental impacts of certain aspects of the product with more positive environmental impacts of other aspects of the product. In addition, when developed by different operators, such labels usually differ in terms of specific methodology underlying the aggregated score such as the environmental impacts considered or the weighting attributed to these environmental impacts. This may result in the same product receiving different score or rating depending on the scheme. This concern arises in relation to schemes established in the Union and in third countries. This is contributing to the fragmentation of the internal market, risks putting smaller companies at a disadvantage, and is likely to further mislead consumers and undermine their trust in environmental labels. In order to avoid this risk and ensure better harmonisation within the single market, the explicit environmental claims, including environmental labels, based on an aggregated score representing a cumulative environmental impact of products or traders should meet requirements ensuring the reliability of the underlying environmental labelling schemes, including with respect to thei…

Added(15) In order to ensure that consumers are provided with reliable, comparable and verifiable information which enables them to make more environmentally sustainable decisions and to reduce the risk of ‘greenwashing, it is necessary to establish requirements for substantiation of explicit environmental claims. Such substantiation should take into account robust and independent internationally recognised and up-to-date scientific approaches to identifying and measuring environmental impacts, environmental aspects and environmental performance of products or traders, and it should result in reliable, transparent, comparable and verifiable information to the consumer. [Am. 9]

RemovedRecital 43: (43) In order to combat misleading explicit environmental claims communicated in the form of environmental labels and increase consumer trust in environmental labels, including trademarks and logos of certification schemes, this Directive should establish governance criteria that all environmental labelling schemes are to comply with, complementing thus the requirements set in the said proposal amending Directive 2005/29/EC.

Added(16) The assessment made to substantiate explicit environmental claims needs to consider the life-cycle of the product or of the overall activities of the trader and should not omit any relevant environmental aspects or environmental impacts. The benefits claimed should not result in an unjustifieda transfer of negative impacts to other stages of the life cycle of a product or trader, or to the creation or increase of other negative environmental impacts. [Am. 10]

RemovedRecital 44: deleted

Added(17) The assessment substantiating the explicit environmental claim should make it possible to identify the environmental impacts and environmental aspects for the product or trader that jointly contribute significantly to the overall environmental performance of the product or trader (‘relevant environmental impacts’ and ‘relevant environmental aspects’). Indications for the relevance of the environmental impacts and environmental aspects can stem from assessments taking into account the life-cycle, including from the studies based on Environmental Footprint (EF) methods, provided that these are complete on the impacts relevant to the product category and do not omit any important environmental impacts. For example, in the Commission Recommendation on the use of Environmental Footprint methods the most relevant impact categories identified should together contribute to at least 80% of the single overall score. These indications for the relevance of the environmental impacts or environmental aspects can also result from the criteria set in various ecolabels type I, as for instance the EU Ecolabel, or in Union criteria for green public procurement, from requirements set by the Taxonomy Regulation, from product specific rules adopted under the Regulation …./…. of the European Parliament and of the Council establishing a framework for setting ecodesign requirements for sustainable products or from other relevant Union rules.

RemovedRecital 46: (46) Environmental labelling schemes established by private operators, if too many and overlapping in terms of scope, may create confusion in consumers or undermine their trust in environmental labels. Therefore, Member States should only allow existing environmental labelling schemes to be depicted in business-to-consumer commercial practice after this Directive has entered into application and when such schemes are in compliance with the obligations set in this Directive, and should only allow new environmental labelling schemes to be established by private operators provided that they offer added value, in compliance with this Directive, in terms of environmental ambition of the criteria to award the label, coverage of relevant environmental impacts, and completeness of the underlying assessment. Member States should set up a procedure for the approval of new environmental labelling schemes based on a certificate of conformity drawn up by the independent verifier, and assess the claims made by existing environmental and sustainability labelling and certification schemes. This should apply to schemes established in the Union and outside of the Union, including existing schemes.

Added(18) In line with Directive 2005/29/EC as amended by the proposal for a Directive on empowering consumers for the green transition, the trader should not present requirements imposed by law on products within a given product category as a distinctive feature of the trader’s offer or advertise benefits for consumers that are considered as common practice in the relevant market. The information used to substantiate explicit environmental claims should therefore make it possible to identify the product’s or trader’s environmental performance in comparison to the common practice for products in the respective product group, such as food, or in the respective sector. This is necessary to underpin the assessment whether the explicit environmental claims can be made with regard to a given product or trader in line with the function of an environmental claim, which is to demonstrate that a product or trader has a positive impact or no impact on the environment, or that a product or a trader is less damaging to the environment than other products or traders. The common practice could be equivalent to the minimum legal requirements that are applicable to the specific environmental aspect or environmental performance, for example as regards product composition, mandatory recycled content or end-of-life treatment. However, in case the majority of products within the product group, or the or majority of traders within the sector perform better than those legal requirements, the minimum legal requirements should not be considered as common practice. Also, existing certification schemes and their trademarks, such as certification schemes using a chain of custody certification, which can be more susceptible to fraud or which cannot reliably guarantee the legality of the production for the certified products, should be fully verified under the requirements of this Directive to ensure that consumers are not misled. [Am. 11]

RemovedRecital 47: (47) In order to provide legal certainty and facilitate enforcement of the provisions on officially recognised private labelling schemes, the Commission should publish a list of such schemes that may either continue to apply on the Union market or enter the Union market.

Added(19) It would be misleading to consumers if an explicit environmental claim pointed to the benefits in terms of environmental impacts or environmental aspects while omitting that the achievement of those benefits leads to negative trade-offs on other environmental impacts or environmental aspects. To this end the information used to substantiate explicit environmental claims should ensure that the interlinkages between the relevant environmental impacts and between environmental aspects and environmental impacts can be identified along with potential trade-offs. The assessment used to substantiate explicit environmental claims should identify if improvements on environmental impacts or environmental aspects lead to the kind of trade-offs that significantly worsen the performance as regards other environmental impacts or environmental aspects, for example if savings in water consumption lead to a notable increase in greenhouse gas emissions, or in the same environmental impact in another life-cycle stage of the product, for example CO2 savings in the stage of manufacturing leading to a notable increase of CO2 emissions in the use phase. For example, a claim on positive impacts from efficient use of resources in intensive agricultural practices may mislead consumers due to trade-offs linked to impacts on biodiversity, ecosystems or animal welfare. An environmental claim on green energy may mislead consumers if it is based on resources negatively impacting the local development and environment, or on textiles containing plastic polymer from recycled PET bottles may also mislead consumers as to the environmental benefit of that aspect if the use of this recycled polymer competes with the closed-loop recycling system for food contact materials which is considered more beneficial from the perspective of circularity. [Am. 12]

RemovedRecital 48: (48) In order to ensure a harmonised approach by the Member States to the assessment and approval of environmental labelling schemes developed by private operators and to establish an approval procedure by the Commission for proposed schemes established by public authorities outside of the Union, the Commission is empowered to adopt delegated acts setting out common rules specifying detailed requirements for approval of such environmental labelling schemes, the format and content of supporting documents and rules of procedure to approve such schemes. / (deleted)

Added(20) In order for the environmental claim to be considered robust, it should reflect as accurately as possible the environmental performance of the specific product or trader. The information used to substantiate explicit environmental claims therefore needs to include primary, company-specific data for relevant aspects contributing significantly to the environmental performance of the product or trader referred to in the claim. It is necessary to strike the right balance between ensuring relevant and robust information for substantiating environmental claims and the efforts needed to gather primary information. The requirement to use primary information should be considered in the light of the influence the trader making the claim has over the respective process and of the availability of primary information. If the process is not run by the trader making the claim and primary information is not available, accurate secondary information should be able to be used even for processes that contribute significantly to the environmental performance of the product or trader. This is especially relevant to not disadvantage SMEs and to keep the efforts needed to acquire primary data at a proportionate level. Moreover, the relevant environmental aspects are different for each type of environmental claim. For instance, for claims on recycled or bio-based content, the composition of the product should be covered by primary data. For claims on being environmentally less polluting in a certain life cycle stage, information on emissions and environmental impacts related to that life cycle stage should include primary data as well. Both primary data and secondary data, i.e. average data, should show a high level of quality and accuracy.

RemovedRecital 49: (49) It is essential that explicit environmental claims and environmental labelling schemes reflect correctly the environmental performance and environmental impacts covered by the claim both directly on the product and accompanying the product, and consider the latest scientific evidence. Member States should therefore ensure that the trader making the claim and environmental labelling schemes review and update the substantiation and communication of the claims at least every 5 years to ensure compliance with the requirements of this Directive.

Added(21) Climate-related claims have been shown to be particularly prone to being unclear and ambiguous and to mislead consumers. This relates notably to environmental claims that products or entities are “climate neutral”, “carbon neutral”, “100% CO2 compensated”, or will be “net-zero” by a given year, or similar. Such statements are often based on “offsetting” of greenhouse gas emissions through “carbon credits” generated outside the company’s value chain, for example from forestry or renewable energy projects. The methodologies underpinning offsets vary widely and are not always transparent, accurate, or consistent. This leads to significant risks of overestimations and double counting of avoided or reduced emissions, due to a lack of additionality, permanence, ambitious and dynamic crediting baselines that depart from business as usual, and accurate accounting. These factors result in offset credits of low environmental integrity and credibility that mislead consumers when they are relied upon in explicit environmental claims. Offsetting can also deter traders from emissions reductions in their own operations and value chains. In order to adequately contribute to global climate change mitigation targets, traders should prioritise effective reductions of emissions across their own operations and value chains instead of relying on offsets. Any resulting residual emissions will vary by sector-specific pathway in line with the global climate targets and will have to be addressed through removals enhancements. When offsets are used nonetheless, it is deemed appropriate to address climate-related claims, including claims on future environmental performance, based on offsetscarbon credits in a transparent manner. Therefore, the substantiation of climate-related claims should consider any greenhouse gas emissions offsets used by the traders separately from the trader’s or the product’s greenhouse gas emissions. In addition, this information should also specify the share of total emissions that are addressed through offsetting, whether these offsets relate to emission reductions or removals enhancement, and the methodology applied. The climate-related claims that include the use of offsets have to be substantiated by methodologies that ensure the integrity and correct accounting of these offsets and thus reflect coherently and transparently the resulting impact on the climate. [Am. 13]

RemovedRecital 49 a (new): (49a) Article 13(1)e of the EU Tobacco Products Directive 2014/40/EU prohibits environmental claims on tobacco products and packaging, however it does not prohibit tobacco industry entities from making green claims about their activities as a whole, particularly through advertising campaigns on their environmental performance which could mislead consumers; therefore no environmental claims on tobacco industry activities should be allowed.

Added(22) Traders are more and more interested in making environmental claims related to future environmental performance of a product or trader, including by joining initiatives that are promoting practices which could be conducive to a reduced environmental impact or to more circularity. These claims should be substantiated in line with the rules applicable to all explicit environmental claims. [Am. 14]

RemovedRecital 51: (51) In order to allow the competent authorities to control more efficiently the implementation of the provisions of this Directive and to prevent as much as possible unsubstantiated explicit environmental claims, including environmental labels, from appearing on the market, verifiers complying with the harmonised requirements set up by the Directive should check that both the information used for the substantiation and communication of explicit environmental claims meet the requirements of this Directive. In order to avoid misleading consumers, the verification should take place before the environmental claims are made public or environmental labels are displayed. However, in order to avoid waste of products or packaging which have already been printed prior to the entry into force of this Directive, Member States may introduce a transitional period between the date of entry into force and the date of application of this Directive, during which time existing environmental claims submitted for verification can be used. Member States may prioritise the verification of claims made prior to the entry into force of this Directive. The verifier can, if appropriate, indicate several ways of communicating the explicit environmental claim that comply with the requirements of this Directive to avoid the need for continuous re-certification in case the way of communication is slightly modified without affecting the compliance with the requirements of this Directive. To facilitate the t…

Added(23) The information used to substantiate explicit environmental claims should be science based on independent, peer-reviewed, widely recognised, robust and verifiable scientific evidence, i.e. on methods, approaches or studies that have been developed in line with best practices in terms of transparency and peer reviewed by the scientific community, and any lack of consideration of certain environmental impacts or environmental aspects should be carefully considered. The methodologies need to be publicly accessible in order to ensure the transparency and integrity of assessments. [Am. 15]

RemovedRecital 52: (52) In order to provide traders with legal certainty across the internal market as regards compliance of the explicit environmental claims with the requirements of this Directive, the certificate of conformity should be recognised by the competent authorities across the Union. Microenterprises as well as small enterprises that make use of the transitional phase should be allowed to request such certificate if they wish to certify their claims in line with the requirements of this Directive and benefit from the certificate’s recognition across the Union. The certificate of conformity should however not prejudge the assessment of the environmental claim by the public authorities or courts which enforce Directive 2005/29/EC.

Added(24) The EF methods can support the substantiation of explicit environmental claims on specific life-cycle environmental impacts that the methods cover, provided that these are complete on the impacts relevant to the product category and do not omit any important environmental impacts. The methods cover 16 environmental impacts, including climate change, and impacts related to water, air, soil, resources, land use and toxicity.

RemovedRecital 53: (53) In order to ensure uniform conditions for the provisions on verification of explicit environmental claims and environmental labelling schemes and to facilitate the enforcement of the provisions on verification of this Directive, implementing powers should be conferred on the Commission to adopt a common form for certificates of conformity and the technical means for issuing such certificates. This common form should facilitate the recognition of certificates of conformity by the competent authorities across the Union. Those powers should be exercised in accordance with Regulation (EU) No 182/2011 of the European Parliament and of the Council86 .

Added(25) The fact that a significant environmental impact of a product is not covered by any of the 16 impact categories of the EF methods should not justify the lack of consideration of such impacts. An economic actor making an explicit environmental claim on such product group should have an obligation of diligence to find evidence substantiating such claim. For instance, an economic actor making an explicit environmental claim about a fishery product as defined in Article 5 of Regulation (EU) No 1379/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council should have an obligation of diligence to find evidence substantiating the sustainability of the targeted fish stock. Stock assessments by the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea and similar stock assessment bodies can be used for that purpose.

RemovedRecital 54: (54) Micro, small and medium-sized enterprises should be able to benefit from the opportunities provided by the market for more sustainable products but they could face proportionately higher costs and difficulties with some of the requirements on substantiation and verification of explicit environmental claims. The Member States and the Commission should provide adequate information and raise awareness of the ways to comply with the requirements of this Directive, ensure targeted and specialised training, and provide specific assistance and support, including financial, to SMEs wishing to make explicit environmental claims on their products or as regards their activities. Member States actions should be taken in respect of applicable State aid rules. To ensure a level playing field for micro, small and medium-sized enterprises across the Union, Member States should engage in regular dialogue regarding support measures for micro, small and medium-sized enterprises that are in place on regional and national levels respectively. In addition, and to ensure micro, small and medium-sized enterprises do not face disproportionately higher costs and difficulties with respect to the requirements of this Directive, the Commission should consider some initiatives within the framework of financial programmes dedicated to micro, small and medium-sized enterprises, for cases where they wish to make explicit environmental claims with regard to their products or activities.

Added(26) Furthermore, there is not yet a reliable methodology for the assessment of life-cycle environmental impacts related to the release of microplastics. However, in case such release contributes to significant environmental impacts that are not subject to a claim, the trader making the claim on another aspect should not be allowed to ignore it, but should take into account available information and update the assessment once widely recognised scientific evidence becomes available.

RemovedRecital 56: (56) In order to ensure that the objectives of this Directive are achieved and the requirements are enforced effectively, Member States should designate their own competent authorities responsible for the application and enforcement of this Directive. However, in view of the close complementarity of Articles 5 and 6 of this Directive with the provisions of Directive 2005/29/EC, Member States should also be allowed to designate for their enforcement the same competent authorities as those responsible for the enforcement of Directive 2005/29/EC. For the sake of consistency, when Member States make that choice, they should be able to rely on the means and powers of enforcement that they have established in accordance with Article 11 of Directive 2005/29/EC. In cases where there is more than one designated competent authority in their territory and to ensure effective exercise of the duties of the competent authorities, Member State should ensure a close cooperation between all designated competent authorities.

Added(27) Consumers can also be misled by explicit environmental claims that state or imply that a product or trader has less or more environmental impacts or a better or worse environmental performance than other products or traders (‘comparative environmental claims’). Without prejudice to the application, where appropriate, of Directive 2006/114/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council, in order to allow the consumers access to reliable information, it is necessary to ensure that comparative environmental claims can be compared in an adequate manner. For instance, performance-based certification and process-based certification rely on different sets of indicators, such as setting specific thresholds that need to be met or ensuring that a certain procedure is in place. Choosing indicators on the same environmental aspects but using a different formula for quantification of such indicators makes comparisons impossible, and therefore there is a risk of misleading consumers. In case two traders make an environmental claim on climate change, where one considered only direct environmental impacts, whilst the other considered both direct and indirect environmental impacts, these results are not comparable. Also, a decision to make the comparison only at certain stages of a products life cycle can lead to misleading claims, if not made transparent. A comparative environmental claim needs to ensure that also for products with very different raw materials, uses and process chains, like bio-based plastics and fossil-based plastics, the most relevant stages of the life-cycle are taken into account for all products. For example, agriculture or forestry is relevant for bio-based plastics while raw oil extraction is relevant for fossil-based plastics and the question whether a relevant share of the product ends up in landfill is highly relevant to plastics that biodegrade well under landfill conditions but maybe less relevant for plastics that do not biodegrade under such conditions. [Am. 16]

RemovedRecital 65: (65) When adopting delegated acts pursuant to Article 290 TFEU, it is of particular importance that the Commission carry out appropriate consultations, including with the consultation forum during its preparatory work, including at expert level, and that those consultations be conducted in accordance with the principles laid down in the Interinstitutional Agreement of 13 April 2016 on Better Law-Making89 . In particular, to ensure equal participation in the preparation of delegated acts, the European Parliament and the Council receive all documents at the same time as Member States’ experts, and their experts systematically have access to meetings of Commission expert groups dealing with the preparation of delegated acts.

Added(27a) It is important that traders do not make generic claims such as “conscious”, “sustainable”, and “responsible”, based exclusively on recognised excellent environmental performance, because such terms relate to other characteristics in addition to environmental characteristics, such as social characteristics. [Am. 17]

RemovedRecital 67: (67) Where based on the results of the monitoring and evaluation of this Directive the Commission finds it appropriate to propose a review of this Directive, the feasibility and appropriateness of further provisions on mandating the use of common method for substantiation of explicit environmental claims, or further harmonisation as regards requirements on the substantiation of specific environmental claims on environmental aspects or environmental impacts should also be considered.

Added(28) When setting up the requirements for substantiation and communication of explicit environmental claims, including by delegated acts adopted by the Commission, the difficulties that traders may encounter in gathering information from actors throughout their value chain or on the product’s overall life-cycle, especially for services or where there is insufficient scientific evidence, should be taken into account. This is important for example for services such as electronic communications services, for which it can be difficult to define the scope and system boundaries, e.g. where the life-cycle starts and where it finishes and even more where supply chains are complex and not stable, e.g. in cases where many equipment or components are manufactured by a multitude of enterprises outside the EU, and thus sustainability related information might not be easily accessible to EU traders concerned.

RemovedRecital 68: (68) The use of the most harmful substances should ultimately be phased-out in the Union to avoid and prevent significant harm to human health and the environment, in particular their use in consumer products. The Commission should provide a report on the use of explicit environmental claims on products containing harmful substances and evaluate for which products or product groups the use of explicit environmental claims is misleading. Since the use of such claims can encourage consumption of those products that contain substances harmful to the environment or human health, the Commission should have the power to adopt delegated acts to introduce restrictions or prohibitions on the use of such explicit environmental claims. In its report, the Commission could also evaluate whether it would be appropriate that certain EU Ecolabel criteria set under Regulation (EC) No 66/2010 concerning the use of substances or preparations/mixtures be used for the potential restrictions or prohibitions on the use of explicit environmental claims under this Directive. Regulation (EC) 1272/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council90 prohibits the labelling of mixtures and substances that contain hazardous chemicals as ‘non-toxic’, ‘non-harmful’, ‘non-polluting’, ‘ecological’ or any other statements indicating that the substance or mixture is not hazardous or statements that are inconsistent with the classification of that substance or mixture. Member States are required to ensure that …

Added(29) For some sectors or for certain products or traders, significant environmental impacts or environmental aspects could be suspected but there might not yet be a recognised scientific method to fully assess those environmental impacts and environmental aspects. For such cases and while efforts are made to develop methods and gather evidence to enable the assessment of the respective environmental impact or environmental aspect for those sectors, traders or products, traders should be able to promote their sustainability efforts through publication of company sustainability reporting, factual reporting on the company’s performance metrics and work to reduce energy consumption, including on their websites. This flexibility would maintain and promote the incentives of those sectors or traders to continue their efforts to develop common environmental assessments pursuant to this Directive while providing for the necessary time to complete such work.

RemovedArticle 1 – title: Subject matter and scope

Added(29a) It is important to acknowledge the challenges faced by micro, small and medium-sized enterprises in terms of resources and capabilities, especially in comparison to larger corporations. Therefore, it is essential for Member States, when implementing this Directive, to take all appropriate measures to help micro, small and medium-sized enterprises to comply with the requirements of this Directive. [Am. 18]

RemovedArticle 1 – paragraph -1 (new): -1. The purpose of this Directive is to provide for a high level of consumer and environmental protection, while contributing to the functioning of the internal market, by approximating the laws, regulations and administrative provisions of the Member States related to environmental claims made on or with reference to products made available on the market or to traders making products available on the market.

Added(30) While unfair commercial practices, including misleading environmental claims, are prohibited for all traders pursuant to Directive 2005/29/EC, an administrative burden linked to substantiation and verification of environmental claims on the smallest companies could be disproportionate and should be avoided. To this end, microenterprises should be exempted from the requirements on substantiation of Article 3 and 4 unless these enterprises wish to obtain a certificate of conformity of explicit environmental claims that will be recognised by the competent authorities across the Union.

RemovedArticle 1 – paragraph 1: 1. This Directive applies to explicit environmental claims made by traders about products placed on the market or put into service, including through online platforms or traders and environmental labelling schemes in business-to-consumer commercial practices.

Added(31) In order to meet both the needs of traders regarding dynamic marketing strategies and the needs of consumers regarding more detailed, and more accurate, environmental information, the Commission may adopt delegated acts to supplement the provisions on substantiation of explicit environmental claims by further specifying the criteria for such substantiation with regard to certain claims (e.g. climate-related claims, including claims about offsetsbased on carbon credits on residual emissions of a trader, such as “climate neutrality” or similar,, and claims on recyclability and recycled content). The Commission should be empowered to further establish rules for measuring and calculating the environmental impacts, environmental aspects and environmental performance, by determining which activities, processes, materials, emissions or use of a product or trader contribute significantly or cannot contribute to the relevant environmental impacts and environmental aspects; by determining for which environmental aspects and environmental impacts primary information should be used; and by determining the criteria to assess the accuracy of primary and secondary information. While in most cases the Commission would consider the need for adopting these rules only after having the results of the monitoring of the evolution of environmental claims on the Union market, for some types of claims it may be necessary for the Commission to adopt supplementary rules before the results of this monitoring are available. For example, in case of climate-related claims it may be necessary to adopt such supplementary acts in order to operationalise the provisions on substantiation of claims based on offsetscarbon credits used on residual emissions of a trader. [Am. 19]

RemovedArticle 1 – paragraph 2 – point i: deleted / (deleted)

Added(32) The Commission Recommendation (EU) 2021/2279 contains guidance on how to measure the life cycle environmental performance of specific products or organisations and how to develop Product Environmental Footprint Category Rules (PEFCRs) and Organisation Environmental Footprint Sectorial Rules (OEFSRs) that allow comparison of products to a benchmark. Such category rules for specific products or traders can be used to support the substantiation of claims in line with the requirements of this Directive. Therefore, the Commission should be empowered to adopt delegated acts to establish product group or sector specific rules where this may have added value. However, for some product groups, the PEF method is not suitable for providing a holistic environmental assessment. In case the Product Environmental Footprint method does not yet cover an impact category, which is relevant for a product group, the adoption of PEFCR may take place only once these new relevant environmental impact categories have been added. For example, as regards marine fisheries, the PEFCR should for example reflect the fisheries-specific environmental impact categories, in particular the sustainability of the targeted stock. Concerning space, the PEFCR should reflect defence and space-specific environmental impact categories, including the orbital space use. As regards food and agricultural products, biodiversity and nature protection, as well as farming practices, including positive externalities of, extensive farming and animal welfare, should, for example, also be integrated before the adoption of PEFCR could be considered. As regards textiles, the PEFCR should for example reflect the microplastics release, before the adoption of PEFCR could be considered. To further develop the current PEF method and address its limitations, it is important that the Commission regularly evaluates and updates the methods in order to reflect scientific progress. It is also important that the Commission enables the Consultation forum established under this Directive to contribute to the development of PEFCR and OEFCR. [Am. 20]

RemovedArticle 1 – paragraph 2 – point k: deleted / (deleted)

Added(32a) In order to ensure the integrity, impartiality and high quality of the substantiation of environmental claims, and to ensure that the requirements for the substantiation result in a better understanding of environmental impacts by consumers, it is important that those requirements for the substantiation of environmental claims are developed involving a balanced set of stakeholders, such as consumer organisations, environmental non-governmental organisations, operators of labelling schemes and competent bodies, in addition to industry representatives, including micro, small and medium-sized enterprises and craft industry representatives, trade unions, traders, retailers, importers. For this purpose, the Commission should establish a consultation forum, the role of which will be to provide opinions on whether existing rules and methods are suitable for substantiating specific environmental claims, and to be consulted on the preparation of the revision or the development of new delegated acts. [Am. 21]

RemovedArticle 1 – paragraph 2 – point o: (o) Directive 2013/34/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council109, Regulation (EU) 2019/2088 of the European Parliament and of the Council and other Union, national or international rules, standards or guidelines for financial services, financial instruments, and financial products;

Added(33) Since Directive 2005/29/EC already applies to misleading environmental claims, it enables the national courts and administrative authorities to stop and prohibit such claims. For example, in order to comply with Directive 2005/29/EC, environmental claims should relate only to aspects that are significant in terms of the product’s or trader’s environmental impact. Environmental claims and labelling schemes should also be clear and unambiguous regarding which aspects of the product or trader they refer to and should not omit or hide important information about the environmental performance of the product or trader that consumers need in order to make informed choices. The wording, imagery and overall product presentation, including the taglines, layout, choice of colours, images, pictures, sounds, symbols, trademark or labels, included in the environmental claim should provide a truthful and accurate representation of the scale of the environmental benefit achieved, and should not overstate the environmental benefit achieved. Where applicable, information about the exact amount of a product’s certified material content, a feature around which certain types of labelling schemes operate, should not be omitted, especially when the minimum certified content could be zero. [Am. 22]

RemovedArticle 1 – paragraph 2 – point o a (new): (oa) Regulation (EU) No 1007/2011 of the European Parliament and of the Council on textile fibre names and related labelling and marketing of the fibre composition of textile products;

Added(34) Where the explicit environmental claim concerns a final product and relevant environmental impacts or environmental aspects of such product occur at the use phase or at the end of life and consumers can influence such environmental impacts or environmental aspects via appropriate behaviour, such as, for example, correct waste sorting or impacts of use patterns on product’s longevity, the claim should also include information explaining to consumers how their behaviour can positively contribute to the protection of the environment. [Am. 23]

RemovedArticle 1 – paragraph 2 – point p: deleted

Added(35) In order to facilitate consumers’ choices of more sustainable products and to incentivise efforts of traders to lower their environmental impacts, when the claim communicated relates to future environmental performance, it should as a priority be based on improvements inside trader’s own operations and value chains rather than relying on offsetting of greenhouse has emissions or other environmental impacts.