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~ Wijnand Jongen ~

are nudged towards greener choices. This is why retailers,
especially in the online environment, have come up with
initiatives to streamline this type of communication.

These include overall indicators of the performance of a
good or service (based on a “bronze, silver, golden” approach).
Some online players have created dedicated web pages listing
labels displayed on their marketplace; others set up dedicated
sustainability filters.

However, with the new EU rules, retailers’ initiatives in the
likes of those we mentioned above could be banned or heavily
restricted.
NOG ACTUEEL?
How can policymakers avoid gold-plating green
communication?
BECOME OUR
Our primary concern is that the new rules might stifle
competition on environmental information, eventually having
an adverse effect on consumers’ environmental awareness.
Complexifying the process for businesses to produce and
COMPANY PLUS
communicate such information is not the right way forward.
The introduction of the new certification process risks
heftily increasing the costs of environmental information.
MEMBER
Indeed, companies who invest in ensuring high levels of
trustworthiness in their claims will now have to go through a
second, costly, third-party verification process before they are
able to place any new claim on the market.

In fact, the draft Green Claims Directive could lead to
very dissimilar certification processes per Member State.
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Verifiers in some EU countries might end up dealing with
enormous amounts of requests to verify claims and, therefore, activities
require higher compensation for their services. In contrast,
other verifying bodies in countries with less demand will Get weekly and monthly monitoring
be able to deliver their certification in shorter delays and reports on relevant policy issues
for a smaller price. Companies that cannot afford to cross
borders to request verification will be confined to the more Get the annual European B2C
or less efficient national certification system where they are Ecommerce Report for free
established. If this is the case, these businesses will most
likely give up on communicating their contribution to a more
sustainable economy. And because today, selling sustainable Access exclusive events
products and services — and being able to tell this to the
world — is a matter of survival, the mere existence of such
Publish your profile and guest article
companies will be put on the line.
on Ecommerce Europe's website
For these reasons, Ecommerce Europe has called on
policymakers to reflect on this issue. The objective should be
to harmonise and clarify rules across the EU to ensure the
For more information visit our
reliability and comparability of voluntary claims. But this
website or email us:
should not come at the expense of European companies,
www.ecommerce-europe.eu
especially smaller ones, which could be discouraged from
informing consumers further. Instead, leaving a margin [email protected]
for retailers to deliver simple and comparable consumer
information could be a good starting point. Let’s make
environmental communication freely flow across borders! ••

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