ACM opens attack on dubious sustainability claims in the energy sector | Financial

The regulator claims to have checked the claims of ten major energy suppliers and to start a follow-up investigation into two of these energy suppliers where the most misleading sustainability claims were found. The two companies involved have not been disclosed.

‘Presenting more sustainable than they are’

“We see that some energy suppliers pretend to be more sustainable than they actually are. As a result, consumers cannot distinguish between companies that invest a lot in sustainability and companies that do not,” said Edwin van Houten, director of Consumers at ACM. According to Van Houten, this distorts competition and affects consumers’ confidence in sustainability claims. In the event of violations, ACM can also impose sanctions.

In the investigation, ACM came across claims in which an energy supplier states that it supplies green gas, but which do not state that only a certain percentage of the gas consists of green gas or that it is CO2-compensated gas. It is also not always clear what exactly is meant by claims in which a company presents itself as a ‘leader in the field of sustainability’.

Energy suppliers also sometimes use a ranking obtained in a comparative sustainability study to present themselves as sustainable, but too little explanation is given about the value and meaning of that ranking.

Misleading Claims

Last year, ACM published the Sustainability Claims Guideline with five rules of thumb for reliable sustainability claims from companies. Subsequently, the regulator started investigations into misleading sustainability claims in the clothing, energy and dairy sectors. In November last year, the ACM already announced that it would conduct further investigations into six large clothing companies due to possible misleading claims.

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