As compromise amendment negotiations on the Green Claims Directive proposal are taking place within the European Parliament, the organic movement warns MEPs of negative consequences for the agri-food sector if the wrong methodology is chosen as a basis to assess green claims on food products.
“The Commission’s proposal itself acknowledges that the PEF methodology has limitations”
Speaking at an online press conference this morning, Eric Gall, Deputy Director of IFOAM Organics Europe, commented: “MEPs should avoid including as a reference to assess green claims an indicator like the Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) that points to the wrong direction for agriculture and which is irrelevant for farming. While the PEF may work well for manufactured goods, it is ill-suited to assess the environmental impact of agri-food products. By design the PEF calculation method disregards the impacts of different production methods on biodiversity and promotes intensive agriculture, not a transition of the current food system towards agroecological practices.”
He added that “The Commission’s proposal itself acknowledges that the PEF methodology has limitations when it comes to assessing the impact of food products, and it would be difficult to understand that the Parliament would open the door to greenwashing by calling for the use PEF category rules also for food products”.
We highlight the need for more comprehensive and systemic methodologies
Quentin Chancé, CNRS, Coordinator of CESIAe, and the Scientific Expert Group on Sustainability Labelling, said: “The report published by CESIAe in November 2023 demonstrates that the PEF’s life cycle analysis method, though useful in some contexts, is fundamentally unsuited for agri-food products. Its reductionist approach fails to capture the complex interactions in agriculture, leading to skewed environmental assessments. It is not a question of fixing or patching the PEF for farming: there is a clear need for other metrics. We highlight the need for more comprehensive and systemic methodologies that accurately reflect the unique challenges and impacts of the agricultural sector, recognising the need for a diverse array of assessment tools to truly reflect and drive environmental sustainability.”
