Where: European Union
When: 27 September 2026 (application date)
Law stated as at: 12 August 2026
What happened
The EU directive on empowering consumers for the green transition, or the EmpCo Directive, entered into force on 27 March 2024, and applies in EU member states from 27 September. The directive covers business-to-consumer commercial practices and affects all traders offering goods and services to consumers in the EU, whether online or offline. Its objective is to enable consumers to make better-informed transactional decisions that contribute to more sustainable consumption, by tackling unfair commercial practices that mislead consumers and stand in the way of sustainable consumption choices. Those include practices linked to misleading environmental claims, or “greenwashing”, as well as the early obsolescence of goods and non-transparent sustainability labels.
Tightening the rules on greenwashing
The EmpCo Directive amends article 2 of the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive (UCPD) by introducing various new definitions, including “environmental claim”, “generic environmental claim”, “recognised excellent environmental performance” and “sustainability label”. These definitions form the building blocks for the new prohibited practices. In particular, the directive adds certain practices to the list of banned commercial practices in annex 1 of the UCPD.
Examples include:
- making generic environmental claims where the trader is unable to demonstrate “recognised excellent environmental performance” relevant to the entire claim, unless the claim is made in clear and prominent terms on the same medium, such as the product’s packing or online selling interface;
- 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, unless the claim is based on the actual lifecycle impact of the product and not on the offsetting of greenhouse gas emissions outside the product’s value chain; and
- displaying a “sustainability label” that is not based on a certification scheme or not established by public authorities.
Misleading commercial practices
The directive also amends article 6 of the UCPD on misleading actions by creating two new types of commercial practices that will be considered misleading if they are false and untruthful or deceptive and cause, or are likely to cause, the average consumer to take a transactional decision that they would not have otherwise taken.
The first new type of misleading practice is making an “environmental claim” related to future environmental performance, without clear, objective, publicly available and verifiable commitments; for example, claiming the need for the transition to carbon or climate neutrality by a certain date, which can create the impression that consumers are contributing to a low-carbon economy by purchasing the product.
These commitments are to be set out in a detailed and realistic implementation plan that shows how the commitments will be achieved through measurable and time-bound targets and other relevant elements necessary to support their implementation, such as allocation of resources. The claims must also be regularly verified by an independent third-party expert in environmental issues, and the findings made available to consumers.
The second new type is advertising benefits to consumers that are irrelevant and do not result from any feature of the product or business.
Notice and label on product guarantees
The directive also amends the Consumer Rights Directive to require traders to remind consumers of the existence of the “legal guarantee of conformity” and to provide certain pre-contractual information about durability, reparability and the availability of updates to digital goods, content and services, via two standard formats.
The first is a mandatory harmonised EU notice to be displayed prominently in all EU retail outlets, both online and offline, at the point of sale, reminding consumers of the main elements of the legal guarantee of conformity under the Sale of Goods Directive, including its minimum duration of two years. The notice should be displayed prominently, for example on a poster in an eye-catching way on a wall in the shop, next to the checkout counter or, in the case of online sales, on the website of the trader selling the goods.
The second is a voluntary EU GARAN label, to be displayed prominently by the trader in relation to any particular good for which the producer chooses to offer a “commercial guarantee of durability”. The label displayed by the trader should inform the consumer of the existence and duration of the guarantee of durability, and explain that it is offered at no additional cost, covers the entire good and has a duration of more than two years.
For distance contracts, traders must also provide consumers with information on any environmentally friendly delivery options, such as delivery by electric vehicle, if available.
In September 2025, the European Commission adopted an implementing regulation specifying the design and content of the harmonised notice and label. In March, the Commission published guidelines on the correct application and display of the label and notice, including examples of placement in physical stores and in the digital environment.
Enforcement and transitional arrangements
The network of national consumer protection authorities has reached a common understanding on how national authorities will enforce the EmpCo Directive in relation to “old stock” situations. These concern products or packaging displaying environmental claims or sustainability labels manufactured, ordered, distributed or placed on retailers’ shelves before the EmpCo Directive application date of 27 September 2026. The common understanding is not legally binding however.
Traders are generally expected to make all “reasonable and proportionate” efforts to achieve full compliance by the effective date, including removing or correcting online claims, updating advertising and promotional materials, adapting future packaging and coordinating with suppliers.
However, national authorities may take a phased approach where old stock situations give rise to “genuine and specific” transitional difficulties in the early stages, taking into account objective practical constraints such as packaging cycles, stock volumes, supply-chain dependencies and the shelf-life of products. Examples of materials that may nonetheless be subject to review during this period include online claims that do not face the same practical challenges as offline claims, practices that are most harmful to consumers, and products with shorter shelf-lives or faster stock rotation.
Why this matters
The directive’s reach is broad: any business that markets products or services to EU consumers and makes environmental or sustainability-related claims should audit those claims. With the application date of 27 September now imminent, marketers need to act swiftly to ensure compliance. Notably, the national consumer protection authorities’ common understanding indicates that they are unlikely to provide a grace period for online claims, and advertisers should therefore treat these as a priority.
Additional difficulties arise however with such a compliance audit as not all EU member states have yet implemented their national laws which will give rise to the effects of the EmpCo Directive and so uncertainty as to variances in implementation across the EU remain. This is an area that businesses selling to EU consumers will therefore need to continue to monitor beyond 27 September.
