The European Commission wants to prevent ‘greenwashing’ to promote fair competition through a high level of consumer and environmental protection and thus make it easier for consumers to make sustainable purchasing decisions. Directive (EU) 2024/825 on empowering consumers for the green transition and the draft directive (COM(2023) 166 final) on substantiation and communication of explicit environmental claims (Green Claims Directive) are intended to create standardised EU-wide regulations on communication with environmental claims and environmental labels (green claims).
The results of our research project ‘Review of the resource efficiency of organic food using the Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) and integration into a sustainability strategy’ (Ger: „Überprüfung der Ressourceneffizienz von Ökolebensmitteln anhand des Product Enviromental Footprint (PEF) und Einordnung in eine Nachhaltigkeitsstrategie”) (Öko-PEF), which also included a legal opinion on the two proposed directives, show that:
- The PEF and other life cycle analysis (LCA) methods are currently not suitable for comprehensively assessing the environmental performance of food, in particular the extensive environmental impact of organic farming (cf. 2.).
- The data basis for the implementation of LCAs is currently insufficient, as primary data is difficult to access for many companies and generic data is often not differentiated and relevant enough. (Cf. 3.)
- The implementation of the Green Claims Directive places a considerable burden on small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in particular (cf. 3.)
For this reason, it is important to recognise the environmental benefits of organic food and farming within the framework of the Green Claims Directive.