Consultation on the Opinion on sustainability claims and greenwashing in the insurance and pensions sectors

The European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA) is launching today a public consultation on its draft Opinion on sustainability claims and greenwashing. The principles within the draft Opinion aim to pave the way for a more effective and harmonized supervision of sustainability claims across Europe and thereby limit the risk of greenwashing in the insurance and occupational pensions sectors.

This draft Opinion, presented for public consultation, sets out four principles that should be observed when providers make sustainability claims. To make the proposed principles more concrete and to demonstrate how greenwashing can occur in practice, EIOPA has compiled examples of good and bad practices for each principle.

• Principle 1: Sustainability claims made by a provider should be accurate, precise, and consistent with the provider’s overall profile and business model, or the profile of its product(s).
• Principle 2: Sustainability claims should be kept up to date, and any changes should be disclosed in a timely manner and with a clear rationale.
• Principle 3: Sustainability claims should be substantiated with clear reasoning and facts. 
• Principle 4: Sustainability claims and their substantiation should be accessible by the targeted stakeholders.