Catarina Pinto Correia, Co-Head of the Environment & Climate Change practice, is quoted in an article published in Revista Sustentável on the new requirements companies will need to meet when communicating environmental claims.

In the article, entitled ‘Environmental claims: “green” will have to prove its credentials’, Catarina Pinto Correia examines the tightening of EU rules on sustainability and consumer protection, warning that companies should prepare for significant changes to the obligations governing environmental communications.

‘A great deal is set to change in terms of environmental obligations from September onwards,’ she says, pointing to the Empowering Consumers for the Green Transition Directive as the key development in the short term. The new rules set clearer boundaries for sustainability-related commercial practices and are intended to tackle false, vague, generic or insufficiently substantiated claims.

Practices requiring particular attention include the unsupported use of terms such as ‘green’, ‘eco’, ‘sustainable’ or ‘environmentally friendly’; making claims about an entire product when they relate only to one component; and using labels or seals created by brands themselves without independent certification.

Catarina Pinto Correia also stresses that environmental claims must be supported by metrics, dates, methodologies and verifiable evidence. The same degree of care should be applied to packaging, labels, campaigns and sustainability reports.

Against this new regulatory backdrop, the answer is not simply to stop communicating. Companies should avoid both greenwashing and greenhushing by ensuring that their sustainability messages are clear, specific and supported by information capable of withstanding scrutiny.