Jurisdiction(s):
United Kingdom

Sustainability agreements under EU competition law: analysis of the Commission’s 2023 Horizontal Guidelines, soft safe harbour, Article 101 TFEU, and agricultural producer exemptions

Published by a LexisNexis Competition expert

Practice notes

On 1 June 2023, the European Commission (Commission) unveiled its revised Horizontal Guidelines (the Guidelines). As foreshadowed in last year’s consultation draft of the horizontal regime, the Guidelines set out rules that apply to sustainability arrangements concluded between competitors. Although environmental agreements appeared in the 2001 horizontal guidelines, they were taken out of the 2010 edition. Their (re)appearance within the Commission’s antitrust framework therefore marks a significant clarification of the relationship between sustainability and EU competition law. On 10 January 2023, the Commission likewise issued draft guidelines on a novel exclusion removing sustainability agreements in the food and agriculture sphere from the scope of Article 101(1) TFEU. This alignment is consistent with the Commission’s ambitious plan against climate change, packaged within a number of initiatives under the European Green Deal. Rather than mapping out a route for the Commission to back sustainability projects, the chapter on sustainability agreements seeks to clarify that competition policy does not stand in the way of horizontal cooperation that genuinely pursues sustainability objectives. In the same vein, the draft guidance for the agri‑food sector aims to make sure that operators in the agri‑food chain can design joint sustainability initiatives...

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Web page updated on 22/05/2026

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