Green Claims Directive proposal

Nešković Katarina (Pravni fakultet, Beograd), maletic.katarina1@gmail.com

Eco‐manipulation and its negative consequences have been a matter of great concern at the European Union (EU) level for years, leading to the gradual development of a regulatory framework aimed at combating it. This paper explains the main features of the practice of eco‐manipulation in the context of product advertising and services. Then, it analyses the proposed Directive on the substantiation and communication of explicit environmental claims (Green Claims Directive) as one of the most significant initiatives at the EU level in the fight against eco‐manipulation by applying the normative method. The author pays special attention to the analysis of the scope of application of the Directive, as well as the substantiation and verification obligations that the proposed Green Claims Directive imposes on traders ex‐ante, i.e., before communicating environmental claims. In addition, the paper analyses specific rules in relation to eco‐labelling schemes, as well as various aspects of the implementation of the Directive proposal. Based on the analysis carried out, the conclusion is that the proposed Green Claims Directive seeks to establish a coherent and detailed system of legal rules that will regulate environmental claims in a comprehensive manner. In other words, it can be expected that the implementation of these rules will be effective, reducing the likelihood that companies will resort to eco‐manipulation practices. At the same time, it remains questionable whether the implementation of the proposed Directive will impose a significant financial and administrative burden on traders, which may lead to unintended avoidance of the environmental claims when advertising products and services.

Keywords: Green claims, greenwashing, Green Claims Directive