UN launches advice to help governments combat greenwashing

The transition to more sustainable consumption faces significant obstacles because information provided to consumers can be “imprecise, unclear, noncomparable, unsubstantiated, misleading or irrelevant,” says a recently-launched report from the UN Environment Programme (Unep). It adds that governments have a crucial role to play in implementing legislation to ensure environmental claims are properly communicated (learn more about greenwashing here).

The 2023 Regulatory Frameworks to Combat Greenwashing report outlines the steps governments can take to implement legislation and relevant guidance to combat greenwashing. This can involve building on consumer laws already in place and incorporating explicit references to environmental issues. 

The report assessed approaches taken by governments in 11 jurisdictions and categorised steps in four levels of increasing stringency:

• level 1 – countries have general consumer laws to combat false and misleading publicity (examples include Mexico, Morocco, the Republic of Moldova and South Africa);
• level 2 – countries have general consumer laws to combat false and misleading publicity, as well as non-binding measures, such as guidelines to formulate green claims (examples include Canada, Peru, and certain US states);
• level 3 – building on level 2, countries have laws and policy instruments specifically considering environmental aspects designed to fight greenwashing (For example, South Korea, where the government has a role in approving green claims, and Colombia); and
• level 4 – countries are implementing laws that make the availability of product sustainability information mandatory (for example, France’s Index of repairability, and various EU legislation).

Speaking during a webinar to launch the report, Unep programme manager Laetitia Montero said countries could strengthen their regulations against greenwashing by defining the objectives depending on their national situation, introducing strong ecolabels, and strengthening their national capacity to implement rules, including sanctions. She added that companies should base their claims on a life-cycle approach and be transparent over the data and methodologies used to underpin their claims.

The regulatory frameworks report provides many recommendations for governments, based on the four levels, including for them to:

• introduce laws that clearly prohibit misleading or false commercial practices;

• develop guidelines to help businesses interpret the legal requirements;.

• enhance legislation to include environmental claims; and

• ban the use of vague environmental claims.

One action already being implemented by some governments, including in the EU, is the assessment of environmental impact to generate a “sustainability level” of products to provide consumers with standardised, unbiased information. The report adds this can be taken a step further by introducing “eco-scores” which are displayed on products, similarly to nutritional information. France has recently implemented a five-year test period, by the end of which “eco-scores” will be mandatory for certain products.

The report also links to Unep’s 2017 Guidelines for Providing Product Sustainability Information, focusing specifically on the following five fundamental principles:

• reliability – claims need to be built on robust methodology;

• relevance – improvements need to be in areas that matter;

• clarity – information needs to be useful to consumers;

• transparency – information should not be hidden and should satisfy consumer demand; and

• accessibility – so information gets to the consumer, not the other way around.

Unep is concerned that market growth for sustainable products could be impaired by greenwashing and this would slow vital progress towards achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). As UN Secretary-General António Guterres says: “The world is in a race against time. We cannot afford slow movers, fake movers or any form of greenwashing.”

The report was published by Unep, One Planet Network’s Consumer Information Programme, the International Climate Initiative and Germany’s Environment Ministry.