NELA Greenwashing Submission to the Senate

NELA has developed this submission on greenwashing with the help of a roundtable of members and key voices in environmental law in Australia. NELA would like to thank all those who contributed to this, including Dalitso Banda and Reid Thornett from Bennett, Zoe Bush from the Environmental Defenders Office, and those who contributed anonymously.

NELA’s submission includes:

• support the current enforcement regime as a sensible starting point, but recommends regulators be further resourced to prevent and penalise greenwashing;
• consumers be given more accessible education on greenwashing;
• a more comprehensive transparency regulatory regime for environmental disclosure should be created;
• director duties’ should expressly include considering the impact of a company’s operation on the environment;
• general deterrence against greenwashing across the main legislative instruments can be improved by aligning the objectives and removing inconsistencies in the application of those penalties;
• mechanisms to support civil claims against greenwashing should be strengthened; and
• regulators should assess and report on how Australia’s regulatory environment is supporting or hindering transparency about greenwashing, and the potential for shortfalls in that regulatory environment exacerbating the risk of greenwashing in the future.

Read our full submission here.