III. THE “GREENWASHING DIRECTIVE” AND THE CENTRALITY OF CORRECT CONSUMER INFORMATION ALSO IN RELATION TO SUSTAINABILITY AND ECOLOGICAL TRANSITION 3. For this result to be effectively achieved, however, it is essential to comply with the Truth principle, which is basic for all distinctive signs, because only correct communication can bring concrete benefits at the same time to the competitiveness of businesses and to the world in which we live. It is precisely in this direction that the European legislator has moved this year, intervening on the rules on both misleading business practices and certification marks with Directive (EU) 2024/825, passed on February 28, 2024, and to be implemented by Member States by 2026, aimed at directing the market toward choices that are more sustainable from an environmental point of view and protecting consumers from the phenomenon of so-called “greenwashing”, an expression that encompasses all communication or marketing strategies implemented by companies, institutions or other entities aimed at concealing the actual negative environmental impact of certain economic activities by deceptively presenting them as environmentally sustainable. This issue is particularly relevant in the agri-food sector: in fact, a number of studies5 have shown that in this field, “green claims” are able to guide consumers’ economic behavior in a particularly incisive way, leading them to prefer allegedly “environmentally sustainable” food products over other products that do not boast this feature. This is, therefore, an area where transparency in communication to the public is vital to the proper functioning of the market. To this end, the EU legislature amended the two Directives that protect consumer interests in EU law, namely the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive (Directive 2005/29/EC) and the Consumer Rights Directive (Directive 2011/83/ EU). In the former, in particular, the possible objects of misleading information that are sanctioned under its Art. 6 also include environmental claims that contain untrue or misleading information regarding certain features falsely attributed to advertised products, which are deemed to have environmental relevance in the eyes of consumers, such as durability, repairability or recyclability (paragraph no. 1, relating to misleading business practices), and environmental assertions regarding future commitments made by an economic operator, sanctioning 5 See in particular the “Nielsen Sustainable Shoppers Report” of 2018 and GS1’s “Imagine Observatory” of 2023. 111 WINE TOURISM AND SUSTAINABILITY: NEW “GREEN TRADEMARKS”
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