‘Natural’, ‘Vegan’, ‘Eco-friendly’. New Research finds Australia’s food sustainability claims lack regulation

Two new studies expose Australia's green labelling gap and call for stronger regulation.

Nearly 4 in 10 packaged food products on Australian supermarket shelves carry a sustainability claim but new research shows many of those claims are vague, unverified and potentially misleading.

Two new studies from The George Institute for Global Health, published simultaneously in Public Health Nutrition and Cleaner and Responsible Production, provide the most comprehensive picture to date of how sustainability claims are used on packaged foods in Australia and whether they stand up to scrutiny.

What the research found

The first study audited sustainability claims across more than 27,000 packaged food products at Coles, Woolworths, Aldi, IGA and Harris Farm. It identified 69 different sustainability claims in use, with ‘natural’ and ‘vegan’ together accounting for nearly half of all claims found on packs. But neither term has a legislated definition under Australian law and there are no criteria manufacturers must meet before using them.

More than two thirds of all claims related to production processes (such as ‘organic’) or lacked sufficient specificity to be independently verified (such as ‘eco-friendly’). Only 16 per cent of claims took the form of third-party certified logos, while the remaining 84 per cent were self-declared text claims with no independent verification.

The second study examined whether products carrying claims relevant to greenhouse gas emissions (GHGe) actually have a lower carbon footprint than products without them. While labelled products overall tended to have lower emissions, the findings were inconsistent across categories. For confectionery and meat products - two of the highest-emitting food categories - products with GHGe-relevant claims recorded higher median emissions than their unlabelled counterparts. For five other categories there was no significant difference.

What researchers are saying

Associate Professor Alexandra Jones, Program Lead for Food Governance at The George Institute and a conjoint researcher at UNSW Sydney, said the findings pointed to an urgent need for regulatory reform.

“

Consumers are increasingly trying to make food choices that are good for the planet, and manufacturers know it. What we're finding is that the labels designed to guide those choices are largely unregulated and that creates real risks of greenwashing.

Terms like 'natural' and 'sustainable' sound meaningful but without agreed definitions or verification requirements, they can be applied to almost anything. That's not useful information. It's just marketing.

By:

Associate Professor Alexandra Jones

Program Lead for Food Governance at The George Institute

Mariel Keaney, Research Associate and PhD Candidate at The George Institute and lead author on both studies, said the carbon labelling findings raised serious concerns for consumer trust.

“

When 'carbon friendly' labels appear on some of the highest-emitting products in a category, that label isn't just unhelpful, it's also potentially misleading. Shoppers trying to reduce their environmental footprint deserve better than that.

By:

Mariel Keaney

Research Associate and PhD Candidate at The George Institute

A call for reform

The researchers are calling on Australian policymakers to develop a stronger regulatory framework for sustainability claims, drawing on the country's experience in nutrition labelling, including through the Health Star Rating system where mandatory legislation is currently being considered. Recommended measures include legislated definitions for commonly used terms, mandatory criteria for claim substantiation and a government-led front-of-pack sustainability label modelled on France's Eco-Score system.

The findings are consistent with a European Commission review that found more than half of sustainability claims on consumer goods across Europe were vague, misleading or unverified. In Australia, the ACCC has previously raised concerns about broad environmental claims and the results add to growing calls for more robust enforcement and clearer standards.

Both studies used the FoodSwitch database, developed by The George Institute for Global Health, which contains annually updated product-level data on packaged foods available in Australia. Data collection took place between March and June 2024.