Two EU laws, both focused on greenwashing. If you’ve been Googling this at 11pm trying to work out which one applies to your marketing copy, you’re not alone.
Here’s the one-sentence version. EmpCo is law, and it applies from 27 September 2026. The Green Claims Directive was withdrawn by the European Commission in June 2025, and it isn’t coming back any time soon. Everything below unpacks what that actually means for you.
The short version
EmpCo (Directive (EU) 2024/825): already in force, transposed into national law across the EU by March 2026, with rules applying to businesses from 27 September 2026. This is the one you need to act on now.
The Green Claims Directive: a proposal that would have gone further than EmpCo, requiring mandatory third-party verification of environmental claims. It was withdrawn from the legislative process in June 2025. It is not enforceable, and there’s no confirmed timeline for it to become enforceable again.
If you read nothing else on this page, that’s the whole answer. Everything from here is detail.
Where the confusion comes from
Both directives sit inside the European Green Deal, both target the same problem — vague, unsubstantiated environmental claims — and both emerged from the EU legislative pipeline around the same time. They were never meant to be rivals; they were designed to work together, with EmpCo handling the broad consumer-protection rules and the Green Claims Directive layering more specific, science-based substantiation requirements on top.
Only one of them made it through. EmpCo cleared the process and became binding law, while the Green Claims Directive stalled, and the Commission pulled it.
But because they were built as companion pieces of legislation, with overlapping language and near-identical goals, plenty of “explainer” content out there still treats them as a single package — which is exactly how brands end up either panicking about a law that no longer exists, or relaxing because they heard “it’s been scrapped,” without registering that the other one is the one actually coming for their copy.
EmpCo: what’s actually in force
EmpCo — formally the Empowering Consumers for the Green Transition Directive — was published in the EU Official Journal on 6 March 2024 and entered into force on 26 March 2024. It isn’t a standalone new statute; it amends two existing pieces of EU consumer law, the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive and the Consumer Rights Directive. Member states had until 27 March 2026 to transpose it into national law, and the rules apply to businesses from 27 September 2026.
What it actually bans, in plain terms:
- Generic, unsubstantiated claims. Words like “eco-friendly,” “green,” “sustainable,” or “conscious” are banned unless you can point to specific, verifiable substantiation. Not discouraged — banned.
- Homemade sustainability labels. Labels have to be backed by independent third-party certification or a recognised public scheme. You can’t invent your own leaf logo and call it done.
- Offset-only climate-neutral claims. You generally can’t advertise “climate neutral” or “carbon neutral” if that claim rests solely on buying offsets rather than genuine emissions reduction.
- Penalties with teeth. Non-compliance can carry fines of up to 4% of annual turnover in the relevant EU member state — set nationally, not as a single EU-wide figure.
Germany is a useful signal that this isn’t theoretical: it’s transposing equivalent rules into its Act Against Unfair Competition (UWG), timed to land alongside the September 2026 deadline. Enforcement infrastructure is being built now, not someday.
Here’s the reframe worth sitting with: EmpCo mostly codifies standards EU courts have already been applying in greenwashing disputes. Brands that have been loose with sustainability language haven’t been “compliant until now” — they’ve simply been unlitigated until now. The bar isn’t new. The enforcement is.
The Green Claims Directive: what got shelved
The Green Claims Directive, officially COM(2023) 166, was the more ambitious of the two proposals. It would have required mandatory third-party pre-verification of environmental claims before they could be used, alongside standardised sustainability labelling across the bloc.
The European Commission withdrew the proposal in June 2025, following pushback over the administrative burden it would place on businesses, smaller ones in particular. As of late 2025, several member states had signalled continued opposition, and there was no clear path back onto the legislative agenda.
Worth being precise here, because vagueness is exactly the thing this article is trying to avoid: withdrawn is not the same as dead. EU sources stop short of declaring the Green Claims Directive permanently abandoned — it’s fairer to say it’s shelved indefinitely, with no confirmed return date, than to call it dead forever. If it does eventually resurface and pass, it would likely function as the more specific, verification-heavy layer sitting on top of EmpCo’s broader rules. But that scenario isn’t live. Don’t build a compliance roadmap around a law that might return. Build around the one that exists.
Side by side
| EmpCo (Directive 2024/825) | Green Claims Directive | |
|---|---|---|
| Status | In force; applies from 27 September 2026 | Withdrawn by the European Commission, June 2025 |
| What it does | Bans vague, unsubstantiated environmental claims and uncertified sustainability labels | Would have required mandatory third-party pre-verification of claims |
| Action needed now | Yes — audit and rewrite claims before September 2026 | None — not currently enforceable |
| Penalties | Up to 4% of annual turnover (set at member-state level) | N/A |
What to actually do about it
Set the Green Claims Directive’s fate aside for a moment — the underlying principle it represented, that environmental claims need real evidence behind them, isn’t going anywhere. EmpCo already pushes brands firmly in that direction, and EU policy direction on this point is not likely to reverse. The sensible move is to write sustainability communications that would hold up under either standard, rather than building to the EmpCo minimum and hoping nothing stricter follows it.
In practice, that means auditing your claims now: where are you using generic language without backing evidence, where are your certifications actually third-party verified, and where does “climate neutral” quietly rest on offsets alone. September 2026 is closer than the marketing calendar suggests.
Knowing the law is step one
Knowing which directive applies to you is the easy part. The harder part is writing language that satisfies EmpCo’s substantiation requirements without reading like a legal disclaimer, which is a genuinely different skill from knowing the regulation exists.
That’s the strategic problem our companion piece, Your sustainability language is now a legal liability, gets into properly. If you’d rather have a second pair of eyes on your existing claims before September, we run sustainability communications audits built exactly for this moment.
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