TIC Council Recommendations on the Green Claims Directive Trilogue

With the Council formally adopting its General Approach to the Green Claims Directive, co-legislators are ready to start the trilogues to agree on a final text. TIC Council supports the Directive as the best way to ensure that greenwashing practices do not have a place in the market.

We are highly in favour of ex ante third party verification as the only way to ensure that traders do not market their products with unsubstantiated or false claims. TIC companies are already offering verification services for marketing claims and are ready to expand this experience to the needs of the Directive.

These are our recommendations for the Council and the European Parliament for their upcoming negotiations:

1.  

2. 1. Simplified procedure and presumption of conformity: process certification.

3. Data certification should be included in the simplified procedure of verification, to ensure low costs for traders with more trust in the claim.

4. 2. Independence from the scheme.

5. The need for the verifier to be independent from the scheme goes against the market structure and international standards. Independence is guaranteed by the accreditation.​​​​​​

6. 3. Time/cost limit of the verification.

7. No inclusion of time and cost limits to the verification, as this is in contradiction with international standards, legislation and best practices.

   ​​​​​​4. EN ISO/IEC 17029 compliance.

8. No determination of a specific standard for the compliance of verifiers.

9. 5. Consultation Forum.

   We strongly support the inclusion of verifiers in the Stakeholder Consultation Forum proposed by the Parliament.

Read the full recommendations here.