Consumer Edge: September 2024

Office of Consumer Affairs (OCA)

September 2024

Sustainable consumption is the star of the September issue. Learn about new provisions in the Competition Act aimed at cracking down on false environmental claims as well as an opportunity to submit your feedback on the new provisions to the Competition Bureau. Plus, International Awareness Day of Food Loss and Waste serves as a reminder to us all that we can contribute to a greener planet by minimizing food waste at home. We're sharing resources to help you eat with sustainability in mind.

Do you find yourself looking for products and services that are more environmentally friendly when you shop? You're not alone—many Canadians are doing the same.

When you opt to purchase a product with a label claiming that the item is a sustainable choice you might be wondering how you can be sure that the company is being honest about their environmental claims.

Thankfully, under the Competition Act, it is illegal to advertise or market something in a way that is false or misleading and on June 20, 2024, new provisions were added to the Competition Act that explicitly target unsupported environmental claims, commonly known as greenwashing. As a result of the new provisions in the Competition Act, businesses will be required to conduct proper testing before making environmental claims about their products or business activities.

The Competition Bureau is now seeking feedback on the new provisions and encourages you to review the consultation questions on this page to share your views. You have until September 27, 2024 to participate.

And, in order to continue to bring awareness to the greenwashing issue, the July edition of the Bureau's Deceptive Marketing Practices Digest provides a foundation for understanding the complexities of greenwashing, emphasizing the need for accurate environmental claims in marketing to prevent consumer deception, and to ensure fair competition under the Competition Act.

Learn about greenwashing, have your say on the new provisions and if you believe that a business may have made a false, misleading or unsupported environmental claim, you can report it to the Competition Bureau.

On September 29th, we recognize the International Awareness Day of Food Loss and Waste. The focus of this day is to help us collectively understand why so much food is wasted and the efforts we can all make to stop it.

In Canada, a main source of food waste is overbuying, when food spoils before it can be eaten. Planning meals and appropriate storage of food can help remedy this, but if you're unable to use a food item before it goes bad, proper disposal of spoiled food is equally important. Did you know that when food is disposed of in a garbage can instead of the compost it ends up in landfills and creates methane, a powerful greenhouse gas? And when food is wasted in this manner, the resources used to produce it are also wasted. That's why by reducing food loss and waste, we can also reduce our greenhouse gas emissions.

The Government of Canada is working hard to reduce food waste, and you can be part of the solution by preventing food waste at home and by making your daily purchases with the environment in mind.