To use this mention, advertisers must produce a balance sheet of the gas emissions of the product or service, from the upstream of its production until its elimination. This document must be posted on the seller’s website, and available via a QR Code.
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From January 1, 2023, advertisements will no longer be able to boast of the “carbon neutrality” of a product, if they are not able to produce data on the carbon footprint and any compensation measures. The implementing decree for article 12 of the “climate and resilience” law was published in the Official Journal on Thursday 14 April. This text should allow “to ensure transparency vis-à-vis the public and prevent any risk of ‘greenwashing'”, explained the government during its public consultation in January. This measure concerns all forms of advertising (written and audiovisual press, posters, web, etc.).
To evoke “carbon neutrality”, advertisers will have to produce a “balance sheet of greenhouse gas emissions of the product or service concerned covering its entire life cycle”, i.e. from upstream of its production to its eventual elimination or recycling. This report must be accompanied by “the approach through which these greenhouse gas emissions are first avoided, then reduced and finally compensated”. It is published on the advertiser’s website, to which a link or QR code must be present on the advertisement or the packaging bearing the mention of carbon neutrality.
But NGOs believe for their part that the text does not go far enough, like the consumer defense association CLCV. “Putting a QR code to refer to the site is not enough, you have to explain the (compensation) measures on the same medium and complete the statement by explaining that any product generates greenhouse gases”said Lisa Faulet, scientific and food manager of the CLCV. “Otherwise, it can be misinterpreted by the public who may think that a product has no impact on the climate.”
Even before the law came into force, NGOs have already brought the question of highlighting carbon neutrality in advertising to court. At the beginning of March, Greenpeace France, Friends of the Earth France and Notre Affaire à Tous had taken TotalEnergies to court for “deceptive marketing practices”calling into question its stated ambition of carbon neutrality by 2050 and the presentation of gas as fossil energy “the cleanest”.