7 Greenwashing Practices to Watch Under the EmpCo Directive

For years, businesses have used environmental messaging to communicate the sustainability of their products and services. Claims such as "eco-friendly", "sustainable", "climate neutral" or "made with recycled materials" can help brands communicate environmental benefits, but they can also create a misleading impression when the wording goes beyond what the evidence supports.

The Empowering Consumers for the Green Transition Directive (EU) 2024/825, commonly known as the EmpCo Directive, introduces new restrictions on a range of commercial practices that can mislead consumers about environmental or sustainability characteristics. Some of these practices have been added to the EU's so-called blacklist, meaning they are considered unfair in all circumstances rather than being assessed on a case-by-case basis.

Other changes introduced by EmpCo strengthen the existing rules on misleading commercial practices. For businesses, the distinction matters. Not every practice discussed below is part of the Annex I blacklist, but all seven are relevant when reviewing environmental marketing and sustainability communication now that the EmpCo rules have applied since 27 September 2026.

1. Using a sustainability label without a valid certification scheme

Sustainability labels can have a powerful influence on consumers. A green badge, environmental seal or certification-style logo can suggest that a product has been independently assessed and meets specific environmental standards. Under EmpCo, businesses cannot simply create their own sustainability label and use it to give consumers that impression.

The Directive prohibits displaying a sustainability label that is not based on a certification scheme or established by public authorities. This practice has been added to Annex I of the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive, meaning it is considered unfair in all circumstances. Certification schemes themselves also need to meet the requirements set out by the Directive.

In practice, this means businesses should carefully review the labels and environmental badges appearing on their products, websites and other marketing materials. A label that looks like an official or independently verified sustainability mark can create a very different impression from a simple piece of factual product information.

For example, imagine a retailer creates a badge saying:

"Our Eco Choice"

The badge might look like an environmental certification, even though it is simply an internal marketing label with no certification scheme behind it. Changing the design or adding a green leaf does not create the independent verification required for a certification-based sustainability label.

Before using a sustainability label, businesses should therefore ask:

• Who created the label?
• What criteria does the label represent?
• Is it based on a certification scheme?
• Is the scheme independently verified?
• Can consumers understand what the label actually means?

A sustainability label should have a clear and credible basis rather than simply creating the appearance of environmental credentials.

2. Making generic environmental claims without recognised excellent environmental performance

Some of the most familiar green marketing terms are also among the claims that businesses need to review carefully. Words such as "eco-friendly", "green", "environmentally friendly", "climate-friendly", "energy efficient" and "biodegradable" can suggest that a product has an overall superior environmental performance.

EmpCo prohibits making a generic environmental claim when the business cannot demonstrate recognised excellent environmental performance relevant to the claim. This practice has been added to Annex I of the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive and is therefore considered unfair in all circumstances.

The important point is that EmpCo does not simply create a list of words that can never be used. The legal question is whether the claim is generic and, if so, whether the required recognised excellent environmental performance can be demonstrated. A generic claim can also be treated differently when its environmental specification is provided clearly and prominently on the same medium.

Consider the statement:

"Our most eco-friendly product."

What exactly does "eco-friendly" refer to? Is the product more energy efficient, does it use fewer resources, contain recycled materials or have a lower environmental impact? Without knowing which environmental characteristic is being claimed, consumers may interpret the statement as meaning that the entire product is particularly good for the environment.

This is why businesses should consider moving away from vague environmental language and towards claims that explain the specific environmental characteristic being communicated. A measurable claim about recycled content, energy consumption or another defined attribute can provide consumers with considerably more information than a broad statement that a product is simply "green", provided that specific claim can itself be substantiated.

3. Making a claim about the whole product when the benefit only concerns one aspect

Another important EmpCo restriction concerns the scope of an environmental claim. A business cannot present an environmental benefit as if it applies to an entire product or the entire business when the benefit actually concerns only a specific aspect of the product or a specific activity of the business.

This practice has also been added to Annex I of the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive. The European legislation gives the example of a product being marketed as containing recycled material when the recycled material is actually only present in the packaging. The individual statement may be based on a true fact, but the overall impression can still be misleading.

This can happen surprisingly easily in marketing. A company might improve one part of a product and then allow that improvement to influence the overall positioning of the product as environmentally friendly. The underlying fact may be correct, but the way it is presented can make the environmental benefit appear broader than it actually is.

Businesses should therefore ask whether the scope of the claim matches the scope of the evidence. If the evidence only supports one component, production stage or business activity, the communication should make that limitation clear. Otherwise, consumers may reasonably assume that the environmental benefit applies to the entire product or business.

4. Using carbon offsetting to make neutrality or reduced-impact claims

Few areas of green marketing have received as much attention as carbon neutrality. Claims such as "climate neutral", "CO₂ neutral", "carbon positive", "net zero" or "reduced climate impact" can create the impression that buying a product has little or no negative climate impact.

EmpCo specifically addresses environmental claims based on the offsetting of greenhouse gas emissions. The Directive prohibits claims that, based on greenhouse gas emissions offsetting, communicate that a product has a neutral, reduced or positive impact on the environment in terms of greenhouse gas emissions.

The distinction is important. The Directive does not prohibit businesses from communicating about investments in environmental initiatives or carbon projects. What matters is how those activities are presented to consumers. A business should not use external offsetting to create the impression that the product itself has no or reduced climate impact.

For example:

"This product is climate neutral because we offset its emissions."

is very different from communicating transparently about the company's investment in a particular climate project without claiming that the product itself has a neutral climate impact.

For businesses currently using carbon-neutral or similar claims, this is an area that deserves an early and detailed review.

5. Making future environmental claims without the required implementation plan

Not all future environmental claims are automatically prohibited. However, EmpCo introduces stricter requirements for claims about future environmental performance. Unlike the four environmental practices above, this is not a new Annex I blacklist practice. Instead, EmpCo strengthens the existing rules on misleading actions under Article 6 of the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive.

A statement such as:

"We will be carbon neutral by 2030."

makes a promise about what a company intends to achieve in the future. Under EmpCo, such a claim can be misleading when it is not supported by clear, objective, publicly available and verifiable commitments.

Those commitments need to be supported by a detailed and realistic implementation plan, including measurable and time-bound targets and the resources needed to implement them. The Directive also requires regular verification by an independent third-party expert, with the findings made available to consumers.

This is an important distinction because future sustainability claims are increasingly common in corporate marketing. A company may have ambitious climate targets on a sustainability webpage, but having a target does not automatically mean that it can be used as a consumer-facing environmental claim without the required supporting commitments and implementation plan.

Before communicating a future environmental commitment, businesses should therefore be able to answer questions such as:

• What exactly are we committing to?
• What measurable targets support the commitment?
• What is the timeline?
• What resources have been allocated?
• How will progress be measured?
• Is the commitment and implementation plan publicly available?
• Who independently verifies the progress?

The stronger the claim, the more important it becomes to have a documented and verifiable plan behind it.

6. Promoting an environmental benefit that is irrelevant to the product

EmpCo also addresses claims that highlight an environmental benefit that is irrelevant to the product or business. This can be a particularly subtle form of misleading marketing because the statement itself may not necessarily be false.

The problem is that the advertised benefit does not result from any feature of the product or business, yet it is presented in a way that can influence the consumer's purchasing decision. EmpCo adds this type of practice to the rules on misleading actions under Article 6 of the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive.

The European legislation provides examples of claims such as advertising bottled water as "gluten-free" or paper as "plastic-free". While such statements may technically describe something about the product, they do not communicate a meaningful environmental benefit resulting from a relevant characteristic.

Another example could involve a product that is legally required to meet a particular environmental standard. Promoting compliance with that requirement as though it were a special environmental advantage can give consumers a misleading impression about the product's environmental performance.

This is why businesses should look at the relevance of their environmental messaging, not just whether the underlying statement is technically accurate. A true statement can still become problematic when it is used to create an environmental impression that the product has not actually earned.

7. Presenting a legally required characteristic as a voluntary environmental advantage

The final practice is closely related to the previous point but deserves separate attention because it is particularly relevant to product marketing.

Under EmpCo, businesses cannot present requirements imposed by law on all products within the relevant product category on the EU market as a distinctive feature of their own offer. This practice has been added to Annex I of the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive and is therefore considered unfair in all circumstances.

The distinction is important. If every product in a particular category must comply with the same environmental requirement, presenting that compliance as a special sustainability advantage can make a product appear environmentally superior when it is simply meeting the same legal standard as its competitors.

This matters because consumers often interpret highlighted features as reasons to choose one product over another. A company could therefore create an unfair competitive advantage simply by presenting a mandatory requirement as a voluntary sustainability achievement.

The practical question is straightforward:

"Is this actually something our product does better, or is it something every product in this category is legally required to do?"

If it is the latter, businesses need to be careful about turning compliance with the law into a marketing claim.

These seven practices are only part of the EmpCo picture

The seven practices above illustrate some of the most important environmental marketing rules businesses need to understand now that EmpCo applies. However, they should not be treated as one single list of seven prohibited practices.

Four of the environmental practices discussed above, together with the rule on presenting legally required characteristics as distinctive features, are part of the UCPD's Annex I blacklist. These practices are considered unfair in all circumstances. The rules covering future environmental performance and irrelevant benefits instead strengthen the wider provisions on misleading commercial practices.

EmpCo also addresses areas beyond traditional greenwashing, including durability, repairability, software updates and certain forms of premature obsolescence. The European Commission describes the broader purpose of the Directive as strengthening consumer protection against greenwashing and early obsolescence while improving the information available to consumers.

For businesses, this means EmpCo should not be approached as a simple list of words to remove from a website. The bigger challenge is understanding the environmental claims a business makes, the context in which they appear and the evidence available to support them.

Why these rules create a practical challenge for businesses

Knowing what EmpCo targets is one thing. Finding every claim that could be affected by the rules is another. A company might have environmental claims spread across:

• Product pages
• Websites and landing pages
• Packaging
• Paid advertising
• Social media
• Product catalogues
• Sustainability reports
• PDFs and presentations
• Retail materials
• Supplier-provided product information

A single claim can also involve several teams. Marketing may create the wording, sustainability may hold the supporting data, legal may assess the risk and product teams may be responsible for the underlying specifications.

Without a central process, it can be difficult to establish which claims have been reviewed, what evidence supports them and whether that evidence is still valid. This becomes especially challenging for larger organisations with hundreds or thousands of products. A manual spreadsheet can help create an initial overview, but keeping that information up to date across websites, campaigns, documents and product changes can quickly become a substantial operational task.

How Gilbert helps identify EmpCo risks

At Gilbert, we built the EMPCO Scanner to help businesses identify and manage environmental claims across their digital and document-based content. The platform can scan websites, PDFs, packaging artwork and structured product data, extract environmental claims and assess them against the relevant EmpCo requirements.

Each identified claim can be categorised according to the relevant EmpCo prohibition family, with the result mapped to the applicable article or UCPD Annex I clause. This gives marketing, legal and sustainability teams a shared view of which claims require attention instead of having to search through different assets manually.

From there, teams can assign claims to the right people, connect them to supporting evidence and work through remediation. The platform also supports versioning and recurring scans, which can help businesses identify new or changed claims after their initial EmpCo review.

That matters because compliance does not end when the first audit is complete. A new campaign, product update, supplier change or website edit can introduce a new environmental claim or change the meaning of an existing one. An ongoing process makes it easier to keep environmental communication aligned with the applicable requirements.

What should businesses do now?

The first step is to establish what you are currently saying. Before rewriting or removing claims, businesses should create an inventory of environmental claims across their consumer-facing communication and identify where each claim appears.

The next step is to assess those claims against the EmpCo requirements and determine what action is needed. Some claims may need to be removed, others may need to be made more specific, and some may be acceptable provided that the appropriate evidence and context are available.

It is also important to connect every claim that remains in use to its supporting evidence. That evidence should be accessible, current and relevant to the exact claim being made. If a claim changes later, the evidence should be reviewed again rather than assuming that an earlier approval still applies.

Finally, businesses should establish ownership. Environmental claims should not disappear into a one-time compliance project and then return to marketing without oversight. Clear responsibilities between marketing, legal, sustainability and product teams can help ensure that new claims are reviewed before they reach consumers.

The key takeaway

The EmpCo Directive does not prohibit businesses from talking about sustainability. It sets clearer limits on how environmental benefits can be communicated and what consumers can be led to believe.

The practices discussed above show why businesses need to look beyond individual words. A sustainability label can create an unsupported impression, a generic environmental claim can overstate a product's performance, a recycled-material claim can apply to only one component, and a carbon-neutral claim can become misleading when it relies on external offsetting.

The most important question for businesses is therefore not simply:

"Do we use any banned greenwashing terms?"

It is:

"Do our environmental claims accurately represent what our evidence supports?"

With EmpCo applying since 27 September 2026, the requirements already govern your consumer-facing communication. By identifying their environmental claims and reviewing how they are presented now, organisations can fix the riskiest claims faster.