Green claims: organic movement applauds renewed recognition of PEF’s shortcomings for agrifood
BRUSSELS, 14 FEBRUARY 2024 – IFOAM Organics Europe welcomes today’s vote on green claims as it underscores the limitations of the Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) methodology for certain product categories. Both the European Parliament’s Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety (ENVI) and the one the Internal Market and Consumer Protection (IMCO) confirmed these limitations, already highlighted in the Commission proposal.
Jan Plagge, President of IFOAM Organics Europe, said “The agri-food sector is a complex one and the PEF yields counterproductive results for agri-food products. So, we welcome the Directive’s approach, which favours flexibility in the environmental assessment methodologies for agri-food”. He added that “As IFOAM Organics Europe, we have long advocated for a more inclusive approach to evaluating environmental claims, one that goes beyond the PEF to reflect the comprehensive impacts of food production, positive and negative externalities alike.”
Eduardo Cuoco, Director of IFOAM Organics Europe, added: “While we welcome that organic products are exempted from the green claims Directive’s requirements given their proven environmental benefits, we regret that the same is not true for private organic standards that go beyond the EU Organic Regulation – both in terms of requirements as well as in terms of environmental benefits.”
IFOAM Organics Europe looks forward to continuing its collaboration with European policymakers to ensure that legislation governing green claims truly represents the environmental benefits of organic and other agroecological farming practices.
Ends.
Contacts
Eva Berckmans, Communications Manager +32 2 416 27 62, eva.berckmans@organicseurope.bio or visit www.organicseurope.bio
Background information
Useful links
- IFOAM Organics Europe’s position paper on sustainability labelling
- The technical briefing highlighting the limitations of the PEF’s methodology
- Recordings of the press conference will be available on Organics Europe’s YouTube account
- An open letter by civil society, farmers, of retailers and processors criticising the PEF methodology applied to food products and a joint open letter on concerns over PEF methodology for textiles
- Our work on food policies (scroll down and expand ‘Food labelling: Sustainability and nutritional labelling’)
- Rapport du CESIAe sur l’affichage environnemental (en français)
