Organic advocates celebrate legal win to halt ‘Eco-score’ labels

The European federation of organic agriculture and its French members obtained a judicial agreement on 4 June to put an end to labels using the name ‘Eco-score’ for food products, as it can be misleading for consumers.

An agreement was reached between IFOAM and the French public institution for ecological transition, ADEME, which initiated the label in 2021, and the food information platform YUKA, and its partners that use the label.

The score classifies foods into one of five categories, from A (the most sustainable choice) to E (the least sustainable) based on ecological indicators compiled by ADEME, as for example greenhouse gas emissions, loss of biodiversity, toxicity and so on.

Over the past three years, several other French sectors joined the project, including smartphone applications and websites, along with retailers such as France’s Carrefour and Intermarché, and Lidl Belgium. By the end of 2022, 400,000 products and 100,000 recipes and ready meals displayed an Eco-score.

In the rest of the EU, companies, such as Belgium’s Colruyt supermarket group, have also introduced the scheme. Citizens’ petitions have demanded the European Commission to implement it as a Europe-wide scheme.

Launching a “sustainable labelling framework” covering “the nutritional, climatic, environmental and social aspects of food products,” was one of the objectives of the 2020 EU “Farm to fork strategy”.

Legal action

However, according to IFOAM that the use of the prefix ‘Eco’ is misleading, and contravenes Article 30 of the 2018 EU Regulation on organic production and labelling of organic products.

According to the text, the terms ‘bio’ and ‘eco’ are prohibited if they are “likely to mislead the consumer or user.”

“Organic in Europe is an official label, and in several European languages, eco is synonymous with bio, so there was a risk of confusion,” Charles Pernin of IFOAM France explained to Euractiv.

In January 2023 the organisation started legal proceedings in the Paris Court of First Instance, requesting a ban on the use of the term Eco-score, citing “that it may constitute a misleading commercial practice to the detriment of consumers and the market.”

As part of this procedure, mediation enabled the parties to reach an agreement, bringing the legal chapter to a close.

While ADEME is committed to simply withdrawing the Eco-score trademark, IFOAM explained in a press release, other users such as YUKA are renouncing labels “containing the term ‘Eco-score’ registered at European level,” by 31 December 2024 at the latest.

The label has also been criticised for many years by NGOs because of the methods used by ADEME, since allegedly it does not take sufficient account of the damage caused to biodiversity and the impact of pesticides.

Contacted by Euractiv, ADEME points out this does not mean the label itself is being withdrawn, but that the name will be changed.

“The term Eco-score will not be retained by the French public authorities because it was not deemed to be the most relevant in terms of our objectives,” explained Vincent Colomb, environmental labelling coordinator at ADEME.

France and the EU will therefore be able to continue using the label, but under a different name.

[Edited by Angelo Di Mambro and Rajnish Singh]

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