Australian Organic Limited (AOL) will call for harsher penalties on companies found to be misleading consumers when it presents at a special public hearing of the Australian Senate inquiry into greenwashing today.

Australia is the only OECD country with no domestic standard for organic products, meaning a product can be labelled “organic” with little to no verification on that claim. Some uncertified organic products contain as little as two per cent organic ingredients.

AOL says lax labelling laws are the main contributor to a significant portion of shoppers still citing trust in organic status as a barrier to purchase, with the 2023 Australian Organic Market Report finding 33 per cent of organic shoppers surveyed purchased a product thinking it was organic based on packaging claims, only to later find it was not.

“There are currently over 2,000 businesses in Australia claiming to be organic that are not certified, with no way for consumers to verify the authenticity of their claims,” said the organic advocacy group’s chief executive, Niki Ford.

“This jeopardises the efforts of producers who have gone through the rigorous third-party organic certification process, proving how they promote biodiversity and encourage soil regeneration with natural alternatives to synthetic fertilisers and pesticides.

“The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) requires any operator making organic claims to be able to support such claims, but there is little to no action taken on businesses which are selling misleading products.

“Until the laws are changed to stop uncertified operators marketing their product as ‘organic’, even the most discerning consumers will continue to be misled by businesses unscrupulously using the term.”

Main image: AOL operations and technical manager Josefine Pettersson, AOL chairman David Keens, and AOL chief executive Niki Ford