New EU measures to combat ‘greenwashing’ are aiming to challenge companies promoting so-called sustainable products. In this episode of The Road to Green we travel across Europe to find out more about the labelling changes coming to a supermarket near you.

Greenwashing is an attempt by a company to present its products as more environmentally friendly than they are. The methods used are many and varied: unfounded use of an eco-label, vague sustainability terminology with no real meaning, and imprecise promises of carbon-friendly manufacturing.

To combat this trend, the European Union is introducing a directive designed to limit abuses and provide a better framework for the various eco-labels that have flooded the market in recent years.

Are eco-labels trustworthy?

The European Union is responding to concerns about greenwashing and fraudulent environmental claims.

In 1992, the EU Ecolabel was created to help consumers, retailers and businesses make more sustainable choices.

In March 2023, the European Commission proposed a directive to ensure that environmental claims are reliable, comparable and verifiable across the EU.

Too many labels, not enough controls

When asked about the legitimacy of the eco-labels found on the shelves of a Belgian supermarket, consumers didn’t seem convinced.

“Do I trust them? Not always, frankly“, admitted one customer. “We have too much information, it’s hard to make sense of it all”, said another.

Another shopper highlighted the opacity of the current system:”If you really want to know what impact it’s going to have on the environment, you have to do some real research. It’s not easy to know what each label stands for. It’s very confusing.”

But the rules are set to change across Europe from 2026, following the adoption of a new directive aimed at better protecting consumers against greenwashing.

Certain wordings will no longer be permitted on labels, as Miriam Thiemann, Sustainable Consumption Officer at the European Consumers’ Organisation, explains:

“Very vague claims will no longer be permitted. So you won’t be able to just say ‘eco’ or ‘green’, you’ll have to be more specific,” she said.

“You will have to be able to prove that the product as a whole is environmentally friendly and not just one of its aspects,” she added.

Related

‘Climate-controlled pig’? Danish Crown admits to misleading people with greenwashing pork claims

But the EU wants to go even further. The aim is to ensure that ecological claims are systematically substantiated and verified. This is the subject of another directive still under discussion.

“The central idea is that before using a green label, a retailer must gather all the evidence to support the veracity of its claims. In addition, an independent verifier will have to ensure that the evidence is correct and sufficient to meet all the requirements of the directive“, explains Miriam Thiemann, Policy Officer for Sustainable Consumption at the European Environmental Bureau.

Following the example of the European Ecolabel

For Miriam Thiemann, the European Ecolabel, created more than 30 years ago by the Commission, is the model to follow.

This certification, which has been awarded to almost 100,000 products and services in the EU, is subject to rigorous controls that guarantee compliance with environmental standards and sustainable development.

“Each company that applies for the EU Ecolabel submits all the documents to an independent verifier, who ensures that the product complies with the label’s requirements,” explains Thiemann.

Glowi, a leading company in Belgium’s domestic cleaning sector, has chosen to have its own cleaning products certified for safety reasons.

“With future regulations, these labels are becoming increasingly important,” says Judith Witters, ESG and Diversity Manager at Glowi, who acknowledges that there are too many different labels at present.

The European rules make things more transparent and you have to prove what you’re doing. This involves a lot of administration, but it’s for a good cause. Otherwise, greenwashing will continue.

Marijke Schreiner CEO of Stayokay Youth Hostel

For Elly Huysmans, co-founder and co-CEO of Glowi, this certification is a win-win situation.

“At home, people use too much water and too many chemicals. That’s why we wanted to change things, because what they’re using is too dangerous. The impact on our company is above all the following: fewer sick people, more people at work, satisfied customers and, of course, a growing business“, she explains.

Who is responsible for monitoring compliance?

In its fight against greenwashing, the EU is assisted by several European organisations that track down fraudulent claims.

Such is the case of the ACM in the Netherlands, which has made sustainability a key priority, taking action against giants in the energy and airline industries, particularly those that promote the ‘carbon neutrality’ of their products and services.

The ACM recently warned Booking.com, the leading holiday booking company, ahead of new EU rules.

The company’s ‘Sustainable Travel’ badges have since been replaced on the site by a new sustainability programme based on third-party certification.

“We want to make it easier for travellers to make green choices. Third-party certifications come from a specialist body that creates a set of standards that allow an accommodation to be considered ‘sustainable’,” explains Danielle D’Silva, Booking.com‘s Head of Sustainability.

Related

Could Croatia be the most sustainable travel destination in Europe? Its tourism minister hopes so
Demand for sustainable travel is booming: Will Eurostar add new routes?

Members of this body then visit the accommodations to ensure that they meet the pre-established conditions.

“We work with a number of reputable third-party certifications. The EU Eco-label is a good example. We have 16,000 thousand certified establishments,” adds D’Silva.

For Marijke Schreiner, CEO of Stayokay youth hostel, located in Amsterdam’s famous Vondelpark and holder of the Ecolabel, it is a “serious certification”.

“It’s not greenwashing. The European rules make things more transparent and you have to prove what you’re doing. It involves a lot of administration, but it’s for a good cause. Otherwise, greenwashing will continue”, she concludes

Published at Euronews (26 June 2024)

The author, William Todts, is Executive Director of T&E, Brussels (EU)

Originally published in Transport & Environment (March 28, 2025).  https://bit.ly/3YeqqlF

T&E’s reaction to the Climate Change Committee’s 7th Carbon Budget, which recommends that the UK Emissions Trading Scheme be extended to international shipping emissions and recognises the need for a regulation to decarbonise freight

The Climate Change Committee (CCC) today published a report clearly showing that cutting transport emissions fast is crucial for meeting the UK’s climate targets. The aviation sector is on course to be the UK’s most polluting sector, making up 27% of UK emissions in 2040, according to the report which also warns against growing aviation demand until green technologies are scaled up. T&E calls on the UK government to scrap plans to expand Heathrow and Gatwick and instead focus on scaling up critically needed green aviation fuels.

The report acknowledges that supplies of sustainable jet fuels will be constrained, however, it prioritises unproven carbon capture over demand management and firm proposals to accelerate scale up of green fuels.

On ships, the CCC recommends an extension of the UK’s carbon market to all larger ships making UK port calls. On Tuesday, T&E showed that an expanded ETS could raise £1bn a year. T&E has criticised the government for being over-reliant on global measures at the International Maritime Organization, which at best could deliver around half the 2030 emissions reduction target for the sector. The UK needs to include shipping in its ETS as part of a wider framework independent of the IMO, advises T&E.

The CCC’s recommendation to establish a regulation to decarbonise trucks has been welcomed by T&E, which could provide investment certainty to the sector and deliver £2.4 billion of growth to the UK while slashing emissions. However, CCC’s pathway includes increased biodiesel uptake. With the UK heavily reliant on imports of key feedstocks like used cooking oil, this could leave the UK’s decarbonisation efforts vulnerable to fraud and driving global deforestation.

Anna Krajinska, UK director at T&E, said: “As the UK’s own advisors are warning against runaway aviation emissions, the government is committing to airport expansion. By letting air travel off the hook the government risks putting the burden on other sectors to cut their emissions and being reliant on unproven carbon capture. With just half of Britons flying every year, this would be incredibly unfair. The government should go ahead with the CCC’s recommendation to extend its carbon market to shipping which would bring in billions of pounds of revenues. And as the CCC’s report acknowledges, it’s finally time to set trucks on a zero emission trajectory.”

Reaction from T&E’s partners at the Clean Cities Campaign

Oliver Lord, UK Head of Clean Cities Campaign said, “It’s clear that emissions reductions from transport are critical to keep us on track for net zero. Excellent progress in other sectors shows that major reductions are possible.

The number of vans on our roads has skyrocketed in recent years, worsening carbon emissions and air pollution in our cities. The committee is right to stress that we must quickly implement policies and incentives to boost electric van uptake, which is lagging in the UK.

This government doesn’t need to look far for solutions. A national framework for zero-emission freight in the Netherlands has empowered cities and businesses to work together to transform urban logistics and accelerate the sales of electric vans to around twice that of the UK.”

Originally published by Transport & Environment (26 Feb 2025) at bit.ly/43xt3lZ

“This case and its outcome should be the concern of every American,” a legal expert says as the Dakota Access Pipeline trial is set to begin.

By Nicholas Kusnetz

This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News (hyperlink to the original story), a nonprofit, non-partisan news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. Sign up for their newsletter here: insideclimatenews.org/newsletter/.

Next week, not far from where thousands of Indigenous and environmental activists gathered in North Dakota nine years ago in opposition to the Dakota Access Pipeline, one of the most consequential trials to emerge from that conflict is set to begin.

The case, filed by pipeline developer Energy Transfer, accuses Greenpeace of defaming the company while funding and supporting some protesters who damaged its property.

On its face, the trial is an attempt to seek millions of dollars in damages from an environmental group for campaigning against a pipeline project. At its heart, however, many activists, legal experts and even the company’s chief executive say the case is about much more.

“It’s about really the silencing of the Greenpeace entities,” said Sushma Raman, interim executive director of Greenpeace USA, during a press call Thursday, referring to how both the organization’s U.S. arm and its international parent are named. “It’s about trying to bankrupt some of the entities, and more importantly it’s silencing and sending a message to broader civil society.”

Eight years ago, after Energy Transfer had filed a related case in federal court, the company’s chief executive, Kelcy Warren, said something similar to a North Dakota news station. His true goal was not the money, he said, but “to send a message: You can’t do this. This is unlawful and it’s not going to be tolerated in the United States.”

Some legal experts say the case is a particularly large and dangerous example of a so-called strategic lawsuit against public participation, or SLAPP, which wealthy individuals or corporations use to deter criticism. These cases can succeed even if they ultimately lose at trial or are dismissed, by exhausting the resources of defendants.

“Private corporations should not be able to bring expensive lawsuits alleging defamation for constitutionally protected speech and actions,” said Wade McMullen, a distinguished fellow at the Human Rights Institute at Georgetown Law, who is part of a team planning to monitor the trial. He said simply filing a case like this can suppress speech, because defending the claim can sap the resources of advocacy groups. “In many instances, the corporation bringing these lawsuits is counting on exactly that, that they’re going to tie up their critics in excessive legal fees in order to silence them and in order to silence future critics as well.”

Greenpeace said it has spent millions of dollars defending against this case and another filed against it in 2016. Many smaller nonprofits, civic groups and activists would not be able to afford that amount, McMullen said, “so the case has enormous potential to instill a chilling effect across all sorts of civic activism for the protection of any number of rights, including the environment.”

Michael Burger, executive director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University, said the case is “a classic example of a SLAPP,” adding, “and this is a really, really big one.”

Many states have anti-SLAPP laws that enable meritless cases to be dismissed quickly. North Dakota does not.

A spokesperson for Energy Transfer said in an email, “Our lawsuit against Greenpeace is not about free speech as they are trying to claim. It is about them not following the law. We support the rights of all Americans to express their opinions and lawfully protest. However, when it is not done in accordance with our laws, we have a legal system to deal with that. Beyond that we will let our case speak for itself.”

The protests at the Standing Rock Indian Reservation were a watershed for the environmental movement, when environmental activists and celebrities from around the country joined an Indigenous-led campaign to oppose construction of the pipeline. The effort gained enough support to prompt the Obama administration to deny the pipeline’s permit, only to have that decision reversed by the Trump administration in 2017.

Still, the movement’s success prompted a response from the fossil fuel industry and its allies. In Oklahoma, a state lawmaker introduced a bill to stiffen penalties for trespassing on pipeline property or impeding construction of energy infrastructure, a law that spread across the country and has now been enacted in at least 21 states, according to the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law. Federal lawmakers and an oil industry group likened pipeline vandalism to terrorism.

Energy Transfer responded by filing a federal lawsuit against Greenpeace and other defendants using civil racketeering law to seek at least $300 million in damages. That case was dismissed in 2019, prompting the company to file the case in North Dakota state court that is now reaching trial.

The state court complaint names Greenpeace’s U.S.-based entities as well as its international parent group, based in the Netherlands. It claims the groups spread false statements to defame the company and provided training and support to activists at the protests, some of whom then damaged Energy Transfer property and threatened its employees.

“What Energy Transfer is trying to do is create incredible, dangerous law around this idea of collective protest liability,” said Deepa Padmanabha, senior legal advisor for Greenpeace USA, during the press call. She added that the company was arguing that anyone who supported or participated in a protest should be held liable if someone else there breaks the law. “If successful, this kind of tactic could have a serious chilling effect on anyone who might consider participating in a protest.”

Waniya Locke, a grassroots organizer who lives on the Standing Rock reservation, said during Greenpeace’s press call that Energy Transfer’s claims ignore that it was Indigenous women, not any environmental group, who organized the protests against the pipeline.

“We’re living in an age right now where corporations have, uncontroversially, extraordinary influence over our political system.”

— Wade McMullen, Human Rights Institute at Georgetown Law

While SLAPPs are not new, some legal observers see the case as part of a trend of increasing corporate power over the nation’s political and legal systems and wealthy individuals willing to use lawsuits to silence critics.

Warren, the pipeline executive, is a prolific donor to Republican candidates and has been a top supporter of Donald Trump’s presidential campaigns. Energy Transfer’s employees or political action committees collectively contributed $12.5 million to Trump’s 2024 election effort, according to OpenSecrets.

Trump himself has long used lawsuits to fight back against those he perceives as opponents, especially in the media. ABC settled a defamation case last year, while CBS is facing a separate suit from Trump. Trump’s top donor, Elon Musk, is now leading an effort to slash the federal workforce, including at agencies that oversee or have investigations into his companies.

“We’re living in an age right now where corporations have, uncontroversially, extraordinary influence over our political system,” McMullen said, whether through campaign contributions or lawsuits like the one against Greenpeace. “That’s why I think this case and its outcome should be the concern of every American.”

McMullen is one of several legal experts and law school students who have joined to monitor the trial to ensure it is conducted fairly. He pointed to several troubling developments so far, including mailers that were sent to people in the county where jurors will be drawn from that looked like newspapers and included articles McMullen said were biased in favor of Energy Transfer. He also pointed to the refusal so far by the judge overseeing the case to grant expanded access to the trial, including live-streaming. (Inside Climate News signed on to a letter led by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press seeking a live stream.)

The trial is scheduled to last five weeks.

Nicholas Kusnetz, author

Originally published in Inside Climate News on 28 Jan 2025  at bit.ly/4hW2gEi

A new attribution analysis found that climate heating caused by burning fossil fuels significantly increased the likelihood of extreme fire conditions.

Monterey County firefighters clear shrubbery around houses in Brentwood, Calif. as the Palisades Fire grows closer on Jan. 11. Credit: Jon Putman/NurPhoto via Getty Images

This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News (hyperlink to the original story), a nonprofit, non-partisan news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. Sign up for their newsletter.  bit.ly/40PtPci

Global warming caused mainly by burning of fossil fuels made the hot, dry and windy conditions that drove the recent deadly fires around Los Angeles about 35 times more likely to occur, an international team of scientists concluded in a rapid attribution analysis released Tuesday.

Today’s climate, heated 2.3 degrees Fahrenheit (1.3 Celsius) above the 1850-1900 pre-industrial average, based on a 10-year running average, also increased the overlap between flammable drought conditions and the strong Santa Ana winds that propelled the flames from vegetated open space into neighborhoods, killing at least 28 people and destroying or damaging more than 16,000 structures.

“Climate change is continuing to destroy lives and livelihoods in the U.S.” said Friederike Otto, senior climate science lecturer at Imperial College London and co-lead of World Weather Attribution, the research group that analyzed the link between global warming and the fires. Last October, a WWA analysis found global warming fingerprints on all 10 of the world’s deadliest weather disasters since 2004.

Several methods and lines of evidence used in the analysis confirm that climate change made the catastrophic LA wildfires more likely, said report co-author Theo Keeping, a wildfire researcher at the Leverhulme Centre for Wildfires at Imperial College London.

“With every fraction of a degree of warming, the chance of extremely dry, easier-to-burn conditions around the city of LA gets higher and higher,” he said. “Very wet years with lush vegetation growth are increasingly likely to be followed by drought, so dry fuel for wildfires can become more abundant as the climate warms.”

Park Williams, a professor of geography at the University of California and co-author of the new WWA analysis, said the real reason the fires became a disaster is because “homes have been built in areas where fast-moving, high-intensity fires are inevitable.” Climate, he noted, is making those areas more flammable.

All the pieces were in place, he said, including low rainfall, a buildup of tinder-dry vegetation and strong winds. All else being equal, he added, “warmer temperatures from climate change should cause many fuels to be drier than they would have been otherwise, and this is especially true for larger fuels such as those found in houses and yards.”

He cautioned against business as usual.

“Communities can’t build back the same because it will only be a matter of years before these burned areas are vegetated again and a high potential for fast-moving fire returns to these landscapes.”

The series of five major fires started January 7, and were mostly contained by January 28, when some rain and snow fell in the affected areas, but not before disrupting the lives of tens of thousands of people, and increasing long-term health risks to people who had to breathe the smoke from burning vegetation and urban structures.

After several days of official warnings about extreme fire conditions, and despite efforts to reduce the risk by shutting down some power lines, winds of up to 100 mph pushed flames, fire tornadoes, smoke and thick curtains of burning embers down through rugged canyons overgrown with dry grass, brush and trees in areas like Pacific Palisades, between Santa Monica and Malibu, as well as parts of Pasadena and Altadena. In most of those areas, fences, decks, landscaping and homes themselves were the fuel for what is projected to be the costliest climate-linked disaster on record in the United States.

The new attribution analysis was done by 32 researchers, including leading wildfire scientists from the U.S. and Europe as part of World Weather Attribution, which has studied the influence of climate change on more than 90 extreme events around the world. The scientists warned that the likelihood of dangerously fire-prone conditions will increase by another 35 percent if global warming reaches 4.7 degrees Fahrenheit (2.6 Celsius), as projected by 2100.

To evaluate how warming affected the fires, the researchers used a peer-reviewed method that combines observed weather data with climate models. The calculations show that many of the factors contributing to the conflagrations are intensified in a warmer climate.

Low rainfall in the Southern California region from October to December is about 2.4 times more likely, and fire-prone conditions in the region last 23 days longer now than in the pre-industrial climate, the scientists said. They noted that the relatively small geographic study area added some uncertainty to the equation, especially with regard to how warming affects seasonal rainfall, which has always been quite variable and is also shaped by much larger regional drivers.

Taken together, the results all indicate climate change plays a major role and the researchers are confident in the findings that warming increases the chances of such fires.

Many Other Regions At Risk

The researchers were also able to show that the fires’ impacts disproportionately affected elderly people and people with disabilities, such as those with limited mobility, as well as population groups that received late warnings. Some of those effects, they noted, will exacerbate historical economic disparities in ways that could persist long into the future.

“The neighborhood of Altadena with a large Black population was in the path of the fires, which destroyed the major source of generational wealth for many residents who had previously faced discriminatory redlining practices,” the scientists wrote in the report.

Critical weaknesses in water infrastructure, which is “designed for routine fires rather than the extreme demands of large-scale fires, and shows the need for investments in resilient water systems and other stronger climate adaptation and emergency preparedness measures to address more frequent future wildfires.”

“This was a perfect storm of climate-enabled and weather-driven fires impacting the built environment,” said co-author John Abatzoglou, a professor of climatology at the University of California, Merced.

There are similar fire-prone communities in other regions, he added, including Boulder County, Colorado, where the 2021 Marshall fire destroyed more than 1,000 homes. Similar disasters have played out recently around the world, including the 2023 Lahaina fire on Maui’s northwest coast, and July 2024 fires in Viña del Mar, Chile.

Williams said the recent fires around Los Angeles don’t even come close to ranking in the top 10 for size.

There are many neighborhoods in Southern California nestled into the heavily vegetated mountainsides from Santa Barbara County through Ventura County, LA County, Orange County and San Diego County that could feasibly be next, he said.

“I’d say that a large number of neighborhoods are at similar risk to the small number of neighborhoods that we saw exposed to the fires this year,” Williams said.

Originally published in Inside Climate News on 28 Jan 2025