Annotation

The growth of ecological tourism in Russia is accompanied by greenwashing, i.e. unreliable environmental claims that mislead consumers. Public-law countermeasures (advertising and competition law) operate reactively and are poorly suited to the credence nature of ecotourism goods. To substantiate voluntary certification as a civil-law instrument for countering greenwashing in ecotourism, operating at the intersection of civil and environmental law, and to identify the conditions under which this instrument remains effective. Formal-legal method, systemic analysis of civil, environmental and technical-regulation legislation, a functional approach to legal means, and elements of comparative legal analysis. The private-law, contractual nature of voluntary confirmation of conformity is revealed (Art. 21 of the Federal Law “On Technical Regulation”; Chapter 39 of the Civil Code). The conformity mark is qualified as an object sui generis, closest in legal position to the collective mark (Art. 1510 of the Civil Code), performing a signalling function and reducing information asymmetry. It is shown that certification does not eliminate the credence nature of the service but shifts the locus of trust from the seller to an independent, accredited and legally accountable body; the reduction of asymmetry rests on accreditation oversight and public registers. The grounds of civil liability for false eco-labelling are differentiated. Voluntary private certification is compared with alternative instruments and international benchmarks (GSTC, EU Ecolabel, the EU Green Claims Directive). Feasible measures are proposed, with safeguards for small business and against regulatory capture.