The European Commission has submitted a proposal to amend the Directive on Unfair Commercial Practices (B2C practices) to ensure that consumers can take informed and environment-friendly choices. The new rules touch upon product information with regard to the expected life span and whether it can be repaired. Furthermore, the proposal intends to ban ‘greenwashing’ by adding untrustworthy environmental claims to the list of banned misleading commercial practices.
The proposal adds several new definitions, amongst others the definition ‘environmental claims’ that include brand names and graphic elements.
The proposal also amends the list of misleading commercial practices. A commercial practice is misleading if it contains false information and is therefore untruthful or in any way deceives or is likely to deceive the average consumer. The Commission suggests to consider misleading:
- making an environmental claim related to future environmental performance without clear, objective and verifiable commitments and targets and an independent monitoring system;
- advertising benefits for consumers that are considered a common practice in the relevant market.
All comparison tools need to give clear information about the method of comparison and the products that are compared.
Additionally, the proposal amends Annex I in adding several items to the existing ‘black list’ of prohibited unfair commercial practices. Those are, among others:
- displaying a voluntary sustainability label which is not based on a third-party certification scheme or established by public authorities;
- not informing about features introduced that limit durability of a product, for example, a software which stops or downgrades the functionality of the good after a particular period of time;
- making generic, vague environmental claims where the excellent environmental performance of the product or trader cannot be demonstrated. Examples of such generic environmental claims are ‘environmentally friendly', ‘eco' or ‘green', which wrongly suggest or create the impression of excellent environmental performance;
- making an environmental claim about the entire product, when it really concerns only a certain aspect of the product;
- not informing that a good has limited functionality when using consumables, spare parts or accessories not provided by the original producer.
At the same time, the proposal amends Directive 2011/83/EU on Consumer Rights regarding the pre-contractual information that the trader has to provide. Besides, the commercial guarantee has to include information on
- the existence and length of the period during which the producer commits to providing software updates for goods with digital elements;
- the existence and length of the period during which the provider commits to providing software updates for digital content and digital services;
- the reparability score of the good as applicable under Union law;
- other repair information, should no reparability score be available at Union level – such as information on the availability of spare parts and a repair manual.
Read the entire press release of the European Commission here.
We are currently assessing the proposal and will soon issue a Circular on this topic.
