From pv magazine France
Ademe wants to raise awareness among companies and institutions about greenwashing, a deceptive commercial practice that uses fallacious or overly limited environmental commitments to sell or promote products, services or a corporate image.
In July 2023, the agency published an anti-greenwashing guide to help companies to understand the term and recognize the main steps to avoid it.
“It applies to any message that could mislead the public about the real ecological quality of a product or service or more broadly about the reality of an organization's sustainable development approach, whatever its terms and conditions,” said Ademe. “Particular vigilance must be applied to the posts are made on social networks. Ethical rules apply to all messages, regardless of how they are disseminated.”
The agency published an updated version of the guide this week and submitted it to a public consultation that will close on April 30. It also created an online test on its website to help companies and institutions to conduct initial self-assessments.
“This test does not issue a label and the results obtained are not sanctions, but a means of raising awareness of the issue of greenwashing, with avenues for improving your practices,” said Ademe.
The legal arsenal in the fight against greenwashing is available in the consumer code, the environmental code, certain texts specific to the environment, decrees and European regulations.
In France, the Climate and Resilience Law of 2021 regulates greenwashing, providing a legal framework for misleading commercial practices. These practices include false claims or presentations that could mislead consumers about the essential characteristics of goods or services and the commitments of advertisers, whether through action or omission.
TotalEnergies is currently the target of two investigations into claims of greenwashing – one at the Paris judicial court and the other at the Nanterre public prosecutor's office.
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