On April 30, 2024, Parliament amended the Competition Act in Bill C-59 to explicitly address greenwashing. The Act requires that environmental claims be evidence-based as they relate to deceptive, misleading, and false marketing provisions. Claims about the future can be considered greenwashing if they represent little more than wishful thinking and are especially serious for businesses regarding internationally recognized methodologies related to common claims of achieving net-zero.
Environmental claims matter to consumers and influence their decisions, which is a primary reason for businesses making these claims in the first place. Note: Underlining is for emphasis only.
For instance, in February 2023, ORA confronted Ontario Power Generation and the Ontario Minister of Energy for promoting hydroelectric power generation as clean and non-emitting. Between 2013 and 2022, OPG sold over $5.5 million in Clean Energy Credits (CEC) in a private revenue-making scheme to offset greenhouse gas (GHG) polluters that, in effect, ended up paying OPG to fuel climate change. This is precisely the type of disinformation that would be considered greenwashing and likely considered fraudulent.