Directive 2024/825: generic environmental claims become unfair practices from 27 September 2026. A claim specified in clear terms on the same medium is treated differently from a bare slogan.
Directive (EU) 2024/825 — empowering consumers for the green transition — amends the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive and the Consumer Rights Directive. Member States were due to transpose it by 27 March 2026. The new rules apply from 27 September 2026.
This is the live EU law on many environmental claims in business-to-consumer commercial practices. It is distinct from the separate, still-unfinished Green Claims Directive. From the application date, generic claims such as “eco-friendly”, “green” or “climate friendly” are prohibited unless the trader can demonstrate recognised excellent environmental performance relevant to the claim — typically an official labelling scheme such as the EU Ecolabel. A claim specified in clear, prominent terms on the same medium is treated differently from a bare generic slogan; it remains subject to the general ban on misleading actions.
Every place the claim lives
The Directive also tightens sustainability labels and future-performance claims. Labels that are not based on a certification scheme, or not established by public authorities, are added to the blacklist of unfair practices. Claims that a product has a neutral, reduced or positive impact on the environment based on the offsetting of greenhouse gas emissions are prohibited. Claims about future environmental performance need a clear, objective, publicly available and verifiable implementation plan with measurable, time-bound targets.
The same campaign can exist as packaging copy, a product page, a paid ad, a sales script and a retailer listing. If approval lives in a brand guideline and evidence lives in a sustainability slide, nobody can say which claims are live, which are substantiated, and which should already have been withdrawn.
Where it breaks
- Registry: which environmental claims and labels are in use, on which products, pages and markets.
- Evidence: the recognised performance, certification or implementation plan that actually supports each claim — and what happens when it does not.
- Approval: who may put a claim live, who re-validates it after a packaging or website change, and how the trail would look in a consumer-protection file.
What we build
A live register of claims, the evidence behind each one, approval before publication, and a re-check when packaging or website copy changes.
Primary text
This field note is general information, not legal advice. National transposition, enforcement practice and the interaction with other environmental-claim rules should be checked for each trader.