New guidance published by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) have been designed to help businesses understand how they can collaborate on environmental sustainability goals legally.

The new Green Agreements Guidance should give firms greater clarity about agreements addressing environmental sustainability including climate change, and how they can work together without falling foul of anti-competition laws.

More formally titled Guidance on the application of the Competition Act 1998 to environmental sustainability agreements, the guidance sets out the key principles which apply, along with practical examples that businesses can use to inform and shape their own decisions when working with other companies on environmental sustainability initiatives. It explains that the CMA does not expect to take enforcement action against agreements that are in line with the guidance. There is also a chapter dealing specifically with how agreements tackling climate change will be considered.

Sarah Cardell, CMA chief executive, (pictured) said: “We know that tackling climate change and promoting environmental sustainability matters, and supporting businesses to do this is a priority for the CMA. So, we have developed the Green Agreements Guidance for all companies who are considering collaborating so they can understand how to agree green goals without breaking the law.”

The Green Agreements Guidance is part of a wider range of documents on agreements between businesses at the same level of the supply chain (so-called ‘horizontal agreements’). This follows work from the CMA’s Sustainability Taskforce after it published its environmental sustainability advice to the UK government in March 2022.

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