"Green", "ecological", " nature-friendly", "protects the environment", "carbon-neutral". Environmental claims used by companies are numerous and widely used as marketing arguments. In a study carried out in 2020, the European Commission found that 53.3% of the 150 environmental claims examined were vague or misleading. This study had also identified over 230 “green” labels within the EU whose levels of transparency, control, and reliability varied considerably.
On March 6th, the first directive aimed at combating greenwashing practices has just been published in the Official Journal. Directive (EU) 2024/825 "empowering consumers for the green transition through better protection against unfair practices and through better information" supports the EU's objective of promoting a circular, sustainable, and environmentally respectful economy by empowering consumers to make informed purchasing decisions.
The European legislator aims to achieve this objective by implementing a series of amendments that strengthen consumer protection against commercial practices hindering sustainable purchases by misleading consumers, namely greenwashing practices (i.e., deceptive environmental claims), practices of premature obsolescence (i.e., premature failures of goods), and the use of unreliable and non-transparent sustainable development labels and information tools.
This directive is expected to eventually be completed by the Green Claims Directive, which is still under negotiation.
Modifications of the "Unfair Commercial Practices Directive"
The directive first establishes detailed prohibitions regarding environmental claims through the amendment of Directive 2005/29/EC on Unfair business-to-consumer Commercial Practices.
In order to enable consumers to make environmentally friendly purchasing decisions, the Directive amends Article 6(1) of Directive 2005/29, which lists elements that can be subject to prohibited misleading commercial practices. The "main characteristics of the product" for which misleading commercial practices are illegal now expressly include the "environmental or social characteristics" of the product as well as its " accessories, circularity aspects, such as its durability, reparability, or recyclability." The explicit qualification of these characteristics as "main characteristics" underlines the importance the legislator attributes to them in the consumer decision-making process before purchasing a product.
Therewith, the list of specific commercial practices covered by Article 6(2) of Directive 2005/29, which are considered misleading, is expanded. The amended provision now explicitly qualifies as misleading the commercial practice of making "an environmental claim regarding future environmental performance without clear, accessible, public, and verifiable commitments, objective, publicly available and verifiable commitments set out in a detailed and realistic implementation plan that includes measurable and time-bound targets (...), and that is regularly verified by an independent third party expert, whose findings are made available to consumers."
Finally, the directive extends the list of commercial practices that must be considered unfair in all circumstances (referred to as the "black list") to include seven practices of premature obsolescence and four practices of greenwashing. This extension includes the following prohibitions :
- Displaying a sustainability label that is not based on a certification scheme or not established by public authorities.
- Making a generic environmental claim for which the trader is not able to demonstrate recognised excellent environmental performance relevant to the claim.
- Making an environmental claim about the entire product or the trader’s entire business when it concerns only a certain aspect of the product or a specific activity of the trader’s business.
- Claiming, based on the offsetting of greenhouse gas emissions, that a product has a neutral, reduced or positive impact on the environment in terms of greenhouse gas emissions. This ban, in particular, has given rise to much discussion. It does not prohibit the use of carbon offsetting systems, or even the advertising of such systems, but it does prohibit the assertion that carbon offsets would have a neutral, reduced or even positive impact on the environment, and thus give the impression that the environmental impact of a product or service would be neutralized by such offsetting.
Amendments to the “Consumer Rights Directive”
A number of changes have also been made to Directive 2011/83/EU on consumer rights. For example, specific information on the durability and reparability of a product, which is sometimes very restrictive and difficult to implement, is required from the company for all types of goods before the conclusion of the contract. These include :
- information on the existence and duration of the manufacturer's commercial guarantee of durability;
- the existence and duration of the period during which the producer undertakes to provide updates for goods with digital elements; and
- the reparability index of the good; harmonized requirements will be put in place in this respect at EU level. In the absence of such an index, other repair information, such as the availability of spare parts or a repair manual, will have to be provided.
Impact on companies
The amendments to Directive (EC) 2005/29 will have a significant impact on the environmental claims used by companies. The frequent advertising claim of carbon neutrality will thus be considered unfair, regardless of the specific circumstances of the case, if carbon neutrality is achieved through carbon offsetting. Environmental claims linked to future commitments will only be possible under particularly strict conditions.
Relationship with the Draft Green Claims
These requirements will be further strengthened if the Draft Green Claims,is adopted. This aims to combat greenwashing by setting minimum criteria that companies making claims about the environmental benefits and performance of their products or services must meet, as well as minimum criteria for environmental labelling schemes. Any such environmental claims will have to be substantiated in accordance with a minimum set of criteria defined in the directive and will have to be independently verified by an accredited verifier.
The draft directive aims to regulate the way in which environmental claims are justified and communicated, and to control the proliferation of environmental labels, so that consumers have access to reliable, comparable and verifiable environmental information.
Entry into force
Member States are now required to transpose greenwashing directive into national law by the 27th of March 2026, and to apply the measures adopted from the 27th of September 2026. Before this transposition into national law, the directive will not have a direct effect on companies’ activities. However, it is important to bear in mind that many commercial practices which fail to comply with the new directive may be considered misleading and therefore illegal under current legislation. In this regard, it is worth noting the existence of guidelines on environmental claims adopted by the Federal Public Service Economy in June 2022, which, although non-binding, aim to interpret Articles VI.93 to VI.100 of the (Belgian) Economic Law Code which relate to the prohibition of misleading unfair commercial practices and apply to greenwashing practices.
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