Climate change is the biggest global emergency we are facing, and using litigation to hold corporate polluters accountable for misleading consumers is one among a variety of avenues to combat this crisis. A recent report by the European Commission showed that 42% of online market websites contain false, deceptive or exaggerated environmental claims and could qualify as unfair commercial practice under European Union (EU) regulations. These are “greenwashing” claims, and the litigation brought on that basis highlights the gap that exists between environmental claims and actual action. In this blog post, Akriti Bhargava, Karla Martínez Toral and Aradhna Tandon explore what constitutes greenwashing practices, how these have been challenged in European courts and some implications for litigation of the EU Taxonomy.
All posts tagged: environmental law
Romanian Power Move: damming rivers, halting renewables, blaming NGOs
With electricity prices sky-high, at the end of 2021 Romania’s government slapped huge new taxes directly on energy producers, with one huge carve out: the tax only applies to green energy producers – fossil fuels are exempt. Worse, Bucharest amended other laws that effectively cancel the nation’s Green Certificates scheme, the only renewable energy incentives in place. Just months after agreeing to phase out coal, green investors are being punished. In this edition of Romania’s Power Move, Lead blogger and podcaster Michael Buchsbaum explains this fresh challenge to renewables.