An app to fight "Greenwashing" in the EU agricultural sector
Businesses will need to provide details of their farms to justify endings like “ecological”.
Here, an organic farm in Gelsdorf, Germany, on August 30, 2022 (illustration).
© Martin Meissner / PA
Text by: Dominique Desaunay Follow
2 mins
By the end of 2023, the European Commission will order “deterrent” financial sanctions against industries that falsely claim that their products are ecological, or who practice “greenwashing”.
The agri-food sector will have to provide proof that the agricultural practices from which its products are produced comply with the new regulations.
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Large retailers and food manufacturers frequently use environmental claims to sell their products.
But investors in the sector now fear that misleading messages - like "
green
", "
green
" or "
environmentally friendly
" found on labels - will soon be
harshly condemned
by EU member states. .
The
new directives from the European Commission
are formal: this year, agri-food companies will have to provide proof of the
validity of their environmental claims
, under penalty of heavy financial penalties.
Obligation to display the state of soil health
In order to help them carry out this sequencing of the biodiversity of their land, the
French start-up Genesis
has developed procedures and technological tools for these analyses.
From carbon storage to water reserves, through the quantity of inputs, pesticides or even the presence of micro-organisms essential to the fertility of cultivated plots, farmers will find through a digital application for mobile, the data from these field analyses.
They will be displayed in
the form of environmental scores
on the screen of their smartphone, specifies Quentin Sannié, the co-founder of Genesis.
“ Bio-sourced
” companies
in the forefront
Distributors of food, wine and spirits are the first to
enter the category
.
But the clothing sector using cotton or leather, or furniture manufacturers who work with wood are also concerned.
The concept of “ bio-sourced
” products
, which has been adopted by several food, luxury and fashion giants around the world, is often associated with “
regenerative
” agricultural practices.
A rebirth of agriculture which necessarily involves revitalizing the soil in order to feed eight billion human beings in a healthy way, but which will be accomplished, this time, by pampering our natural resources.
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