The European food and drink industry supports the development of an EU-harmonised legislative framework on green claims, which should set minimum requirements for the voluntary provision of product environmental information.
Making and substantiating green claims in a verifiable, easy-to-understand, and comparable way across the EU will facilitate a level-playing field among companies in the Single Market and encourage more sustainable production
and consumption.
Essential recommendations for legislative proposals on green claims:
- Focus the policy scope on voluntary environmental footprint communications based on the PEF methodology
- Ensure a thorough impact assessment
- Cooperate with providers to develop solutions to provide substantiated claims that are easily and swiftly applicable in the market
- Set up a system by which green claims can be verified ex-post, through third-party certification
- Simplify the tools to calculate the life-cycle environmental footprint of food and drink products
- In the absence of PEF category rules, allow food, beverage and pet food manufacturers to substantiate their claims based on the PEF methodology
- Develop specific guidelines for the food, beverage and pet food sectors
- Consider alternative communication channels for providing food environmental information
