After COP27, make way for COP15 and then World Climate Day. While the climate crisis and its consequences on biodiversity will be debated in Montreal, Canada, December 8 is devoted to sustainable lifestyles and the importance of reducing our emissions of gas, oil and coal responsible for the disruption climatic. Like every year, many companies should take advantage of this day to highlight their “ecological” initiatives. At the risk, sometimes, of bordering on misleading advertising.
Very widely decried during COP27, greenwashing, denounced in particular by the Secretary General of the United Nations at the opening of the world climate conference in Sharm el-Sheikh, on November 6, is legally reprehensible. This practice of “eco-laundering” has nevertheless flourished in recent years on the posters of the brands that emit the most greenhouse gases.
Justice seized several times
Several manufacturers have already been the subject of complaints for greenwashing, such as Total Energies sued for “misleading commercial practices” by the NGOs Greenpeace, Notre Affaire à tous and Les Amis de la Terre, last March. Or H&M sued by a New Yorker who filed a proposed class action complaint on July 22. LONG Our business to all also filed a complaint against FIFA for “false advertising” after its communication around the World Cup in Qatar, which the federation had described as “carbon neutral”. Finally, in August 2022, the airline Lufthansa was sentenced in Belgium for “greenwashing” and “misleading advertising” following the publication of an advertisement showing a plane turning into a tree. .
Already ten years ago, the car manufacturer Toyota had already been sentenced by the High Court of Nanterre for “greenwashing” and “non-compliance with the environmental code” for an advertisement featuring a 4X4 in the middle of nature.
A strengthening of French law
In France, it is the Professional Advertising Regulatory Authority (ARPP) which is responsible for regulating the use of greenwashing. In particular, it recommends that companies “not mislead the public” and “exclude the direct assimilation of a product with a negative impact on the environment to a natural element”. The advertising message must also be proportional to the actions carried out by the company in terms of sustainable development.
To reinforce existing law governing deceptive commercial practices punishable by two years’ imprisonment and a fine of 300,000 euros, an amendment prohibiting advertising for the marketing and promotion of fossil fuels was passed in the National Assembly in April 2021. The Ecological Transition Agency (ADEME) considers, for its part, that greenwashing directly contributes to misinforming consumers, and, in an attempt to stem the phenomenon, has made available to companies an anti-greenwashing guide on its website.