Brussels – Today, Ecopreneur.eu gave a list of recommendations to substantiate green claims, including mandatory gate-to-gate lifecycle assessments (LCAs) for all companies. This in feedback on an Open Consultation by the European Commission.
Ecopreneur.eu welcomes the European Commission’s initiative for a legislative proposal on substantiating green claims for products and services. We acknowledge the business need for reliable, comparable and verifiable information to make sustainable decisions. We also recognise the mentioned problems including the significant number of misleading claims. For regulatory action, Ecopreneur.eu favours the presented option 3: Establish an EU legal framework requiring companies making claims related to the impacts covered by the Environmental Footprint methods to substantiate them via the Environmental Footprint methods.
However, we do so with several urgent recommendations, including:
- Let all companies perform a mandatory gate-to-gate Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) to identify both positive and negative social and environmental impacts along their value chain, integrating it as well in risk management systems. A gate-to-gate impact assessment by each company of their own energy and resource use and their impacts should be both feasible and cost-effective, also for SMEs, although special attention may be needed for the smallest ones. Their combination would yield extremely valuable information for full-chain footprint estimates and an enabler for circular procurement and design.
- Do not extend the requirement to substantiate green claims using full-chain LCAs / Product Environmental Footrpints (PEFs) to SMEs. These methods are in general too expensive for SMEs.
- Include a second SME impact assessment at the end of the policy making process for all new EU legislation, ensuring that any additional administrative burden of new or amended regulations will be put on all companies and not just on SMEs / companies delivering green products and services.
Click here for Ecopreneur.eu’s full feedback and here for the European Commission’s open consultation with input document.