Parliament’s Committee on Agriculture hearing on Green Claims Directive

The European Parliament’s AGRI Committee held a hearing with Aurel Ciobanu-Dordea, in charge of Circular Economy in the European Commission's Directorate-General for Environment on the Substantiation and communication of explicit environmental claims (Green Claims Directive).

Aurel Ciobanu-Dordea began with an explanation of how the Green Claims Directive would work, together with how it would relate to other legislation, including the revised Directive on unfair practices and better information for consumers (UCPD) and the future Sustainable Food Systems legislative framework.

Whilst many MEPs were broadly supporting of the Green Claims Directive proposal, there was some push back in relation to the following:

 -The administrative burden for companies, SMEs in particular, and costs of compliance with the Directive.

-The need for clarity on the substantiation process, and the needs for methodologies other than those based on the LCAs (especially for food).

-How the Green Claims Directive will address consistency if there is a conflict between the environmental performance of a product and the environmental performance of the company which makes it, or other non-environmental production issues (i.e. use of forced or child labour).

The lead Committee in the Parliament for this dossier is the ENVI Committee. The Rapporteur Petri Sarvamaa will present the final draft on this opinion on 25 October, with the anticipated vote by AGRI taking place on 24/01/24. For the ENVI Committee opinion, the vote is scheduled for 14/02/24.

The Indicative plenary sitting date for the European Parliament’s vote on the Green Claims Directive is 11/03/2024.

Meeting Report: DG AGRI Substantiation and communication of explicit environmental claims Green Claims Directive Hearing 9 October 2023

Draft Opinion of the AGRI Committee: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/AGRI-PA-753776_EN.pdf

Contact: Lebo Mofolo, lmofolo@frucom.eu