Italian Legislative Decree No. 116 of 3 September 2020 (“D.Lgs. 116/2020”), implementing (EU) Directive 2018/851 on waste and EU Directive 2018/852 on packaging and packaging waste, amended Article 219, para 5, of the Italian Legislative Decree no. 152 of 3 April 2006 (the “Italian Environmental Code”), which provides for certain environmental labelling requirements and obligations for packaging.
New eco-labeling requirements are mandatory from 1st January 2023.
The period of suspension of the obligation of environmental labelling (initially until 31 December 2021) was first extended by the Italian Decree Law no. 228 of 30 December 2021 (“D.L. 228/2021”) to 30 June 2022 and subsequently, with conversion law no. 15 of 25 February 2022, until 31 December 2022, with the possibility for companies to sell products without the new environmental labelling requirements while stocks last, provided they have already been put on the market or labelled as of 1st January 2023.
In accordance with DL 228/2021, the Ministry for Ecological Transition (now Ministry for Environment and Energy Security – “Ministry”), with Decree no. 360 of 28 September 2022, issued the “Guidelines on labelling for packaging according to art. 219 paragraph 5 of Legislative Decree 152/2006 (“Guidelines”)”.
Our experts summarised the main conditions for the correct implementation of the labelling requirements by your company.