On 19 December 2023, the Swiss Commission on Fair Trading (“SLK”), a self-regulatory institution of the advertising industry, published a new guideline on environmental and climate-related advertising (“Guideline”). This Guideline was developed in response to the increasing number of complaints in the field of green marketing received by the SLK and aims to provide advertisers with greater clarity on when green claims are fair under Swiss unfair competition law.

The Guideline mainly consolidates existing decisions of the SLK on green marketing and takes into account international developments such as the EU Green Claims Directive. It does not introduce any new rules, but rather sets out the requirements for companies to engage in green marketing practices in accordance with the Swiss Unfair Competition Act. The Guideline aims to ensure that environmental or climate-related claims are both clear and truthful.

According to the Guideline, a green claim is clear if the following requirements are cumulatively met:

• Specificity: The claim must specify whether it refers to a specific product, a product component or to the company as a whole;
• Transparency: Advertisers must provide a transparent explanation for their green claim, supported by detailed, scientifically validated information;
• Beyond Standard Requirements: The environmental efforts mentioned in the claim must go beyond legal or industry standards and not just state the obvious;
• Present or Future Focus: The advertisements must clearly state whether the claim refers to current circumstances or future efforts.

The Guideline further specifies when a green claim can be considered true. In this regard, the Guideline clarifies the meaning of certain terms used in green advertising and how the average addressee perceives them:

• Sustainable, Environmentally Friendly: These terms refer to measures that go well beyond the legal or industry requirements in terms of environmental and climate impact.
• CO2-Neutral, CO2-Friendly, CO2-Free: These terms refer to measures that either completely eliminate CO2 emissions or fully compensate for them.
• CO2-Positive: This term refers to measures that compensate more CO2 than they emit.
• Greenhouse Gas-Neutral, Without Greenhouse Gases: These terms are used for measures that either completely prevent or completely offset all greenhouse gas emissions (besides CO2 e.g. also so-called F-gases).
• Climate-Neutral, Climate-Positive, Climate-Friendly, Ecologically Safe, Green: These terms refer  to measures that not only offset all greenhouse gas emissions, but also mitigate all negative impacts on climate change.

In the event of a complaint, advertisers must be able to substantiate the accuracy of their claims. They must provide plausible and comprehensible calculations based on recognized methodologies.

Although the Guideline does not have the character of a general law, as it is issued by the self-regulatory body SLK, it is an important step forward in providing clarity and guidance for green marketing. The Guideline is important in establishing a clearer framework to help advertisers align their green claims with the principles of Swiss unfair competition law.

For more information on sustainability claims and greenwashing in Switzerland please see here.