Foodlaw-Reading Dr David Jukes, The University of Reading, UK
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Food Law News - EU - 2021

FDE Press Release, 13 October 2021

SUSTAINABILITY - FoodDrinkEurope Publication: Substantiating Green Claims - Position Paper

FoodDrinkEurope Position Paper: Substantiating green claims - Position Paper A copy of the paper is available on this site (click on image). A more detailed document was also published and is also available on this site - see: FoodDrinkEurope views on substantiating green claims and the use of PEF

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