On EU's proposed Green Claims Directive, Eurometaux calls for improvements on Product Environmental Footprint methodology, warns presence of hazardous substances should not be sole reason for prohibiting environmental claim for products like EV batteries

July 24, 2023 (press release) –

Introduction:

The legislative proposal on substantiation and communication of explicit environmental claims, called in short the Green Claims Directive, follows on from the EU Green Deal and 2020 Circular Economy Action Plan commitment to tackle false environmental declarations.

The EU non-ferrous metals industry, delivering materials for many low-carbon applications needed for the green and digital transitions, sees the proposed directive as a tool paving the way for better-informed choices of consumers on the products available on the EU single market.

In this paper, Eurometaux comments on selected issues, presenting its views on possible improvements

Key recommendations:

• Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) methodology – As the official EU methodology, the Environmental Footprint needs to be referred to in the Art. 3 of the Greens Claims proposal and not only mentioned in the recitals.
• Presence of hazardous substances – Some hazardous substances are needed to fulfil the objectives of the EU Green Deal as they provide unique product performance, e.g. in EV batteries or PV panels. The risk associated with the necessary uses of these substances can be managed by controlling (reducing) exposure. Their presence in a product should not be the sole reason for prohibiting an environmental claim for a given product, thus exposure/risk considerations should be part of the evaluation.

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