The regulators all have greenwashing in their sights, but APRA and ASIC will wait for clearer definitions and standards before taking action.
“There’s always been private actions under the Australian Consumer Law, and we expect there always will be, and we welcome them. We cannot bring every action, so we don’t have any problem with [private actions],” Ms Rickard said.“As we’re looking at greenwashing in terms of claims about products and services, we’re also looking at it in terms of corporate claims.
“I think what [the Shell case] demonstrates is the activists will continue to pursue litigation in order to affect the change that that is the main reason why these proceedings are being brought,” she said.“It’s a very different landscape to other forms of litigation in the past where people were seeking damages.
“If there is a net zero label but there’s no actual plan to get to that point, and there’s no allocation of assets, there’s no resource indication and there are no triggers for when you will get to a point and timetable for moving to net zero from a transition point of view, to us, that’s a meaningless and vague forward statement,” he said.