Webinar Sustainability & Competition

The Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM) has recently become very activist in the field of sustainability and competition, particularly as regards sustainability initiatives between competitors. Sustainability agreements between competitors may fall under the cartel prohibition, which may be an obstacle to such initiatives.

After the ACM published negative opinions regarding collaboration between energy companies to close down coal power plants (2013) and between producers, traders and retailers in the area of chicken meat (2015), the type of cooperation allowed under the cartel prohibition remained unclear. That changed in 2022: the ACM published positive assessments of no fewer than five sustainability initiatives. 

During this webinar, we discussed these initiatives. They are (a) agreements between grid managers on reducing CO2 emissions, (b) collaboration between Shell and TotalEnergies in the storage of CO2 under the North Sea, (c) collaboration on contracting with the Hollandse Kust West wind farm, (d) joint agreement between soft-drink suppliers on reducing plastic use and (e) collaboration between garden centres to curtail the use of illegal pesticides.

For more information, please contact Willemijn de Kruif.