{"id":3403,"date":"2022-04-26T12:13:40","date_gmt":"2022-04-26T10:13:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/diligentia.it\/consumer-information-greenwashing-and-obsolescence\/"},"modified":"2022-04-26T12:13:40","modified_gmt":"2022-04-26T10:13:40","slug":"consumer-information-greenwashing-and-obsolescence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/diligentia.it\/en\/consumer-information-greenwashing-and-obsolescence\/","title":{"rendered":"CONSUMER INFORMATION, GREENWASHING AND OBSOLESCENCE"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3><strong>European Commission proposals of directives modification<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><strong>The scenario<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Th EU launched a <strong>Green Deal<\/strong> aiming at making <strong>Europe<\/strong>, within <strong>2050<\/strong>, the first <strong>zero environment impact<\/strong> continent. Within such strategic framework, the Action Plan for a <strong>Circular Economy<\/strong> plays a fundamental role as <strong>sustainability<\/strong> and <strong>circularity<\/strong> are factors indispensable to carry out the desired change.<\/p>\n<p>Last 30th March, <strong>the European Commission<\/strong> presented a set of <strong>guidelines for modifications<\/strong> to the <em>Directive 2011\/83\/UE<\/em> on <strong>Consumers Rights<\/strong> and to the <em>Directive 2005\/29\/CE<\/em> on <strong>Unfair Commerciali Practices<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>More in details, the focus is on two aspects: <strong>new consumers information rights<\/strong>, with referenet to products <strong>duration<\/strong> and <strong>repairability<\/strong>; <strong>contrast<\/strong> to <strong>greenwashing<\/strong> (misleading environement declarations) to the <strong>planned obsolescence <\/strong> (products premature failures).<\/p>\n<p><strong> <\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Products duration and repairability<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The intention is to <strong>oblige manufacturers<\/strong> to provide a <strong>guaranteed duration<\/strong> <strong>of the products<\/strong>, and to correctly inform the final users about the expected duration period and the repairability of consumer products. In the proposal vision, <strong>retailers<\/strong> too should provide their clients with data on guaranteed duration of the products, or lack of it, and inform them about <strong>repair options<\/strong>, maintenance handbooks and spare parts.<\/p>\n<p>The consumer shall be educated <strong>before the purchase,<\/strong> in clear and unmistakable way by producers and resellers.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Greenwashing and planned obsolescence<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In this case, the proposed modifications envision an expansion of the list of products <strong>features<\/strong> the manufacturer <strong>cannot mislead<\/strong> the buyers on. Furthermore, the intention is to expand the existent <strong>black list<\/strong> of <strong>banned unfair commercial practices<\/strong>, such as:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>missed information on features of the products introduced to limit the duration of the same, such as software that can halt or decrease the functionality of a good after a given time period;<\/li>\n<li>generic \u201cgreen\u201d claims without any demonstration of the environment performance of the goods on sale or of their manufacturer;<\/li>\n<li>\u201cgreen claim\u201d on a whole product, when the claim actually relates to only one aspects of the same;<\/li>\n<li>display a sustainability label without any verification by a competent organization;<\/li>\n<li>missed information about the limited functionality of a product in case consumables, spare parts or accessory not provided by the original manufacturer are used.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Objectives<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>The above mentoned measures are considered necessary by the European Commission as the protection of consumers will guarantee a significant contribution of the consumers themselves to the green transiction: environment responsible buying will lead towards a clean econony and will ensure a fair competition. At the same time, a legal framework to discipline the action of commercial operators will push them towards a more transparent behaviour. <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The proposals shall be <strong>discussed by the European Counsel and European Parliament<\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>European Commission proposals of directives modification The scenario Th EU [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31,"featured_media":3392,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[157,158,153,154,156,155,107,99,159],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/diligentia.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3403"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/diligentia.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/diligentia.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diligentia.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/31"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diligentia.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3403"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/diligentia.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3403\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diligentia.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3392"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/diligentia.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diligentia.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diligentia.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}