Michaela Streibelt is a lawyer, lecturer, and advisor in Business and Human Rights with more than 10 years experience. She is a co-founding partner at blue marble legal and European Legal Advisor for the Responsible Contracting Project. Her work focuses on advising companies, business associations, and authorities on the LkSG, the CSDDD, Forced Labour Regulation, the EUDR, and the Battery Regulation
We’ve all seen ads promoting climate neutral flights, or information on shampoo bottles claiming to consist of 99 % recycled plastic with only a small asterisk pointing to an even smaller correction that this only concerns the lid. Software updates lead to phones running hot or impairing functionality or devices contain parts that are only intended to work for a certain amount of time. The EU Empowering Consumers Directive (EmpCo)[1] which enters into application on 27 September 2026 aims to put an end to these kind of practices.
As part of the European Green Deal[2], the Directive aims to protect consumers from misleading sustainability claims and amends the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive (UCPT)[3]. To empower consumers to make informed purchasing decisions and contribute to more sustainable consumption patterns, traders have ‘to provide clear, relevant and reliable information’.[4]
The UCPD already prohibited misleading commercial practices. Accordingly, the European Commission clarified that ‘[i]ts principle-based rules can be applied to practices such as greenwashing and planned obsolescence already today, before the amendments introduced by the ECGT Directive enter into application.’[5] The Commission Guidance to the UCPT further clarifies that ‚[e]nvironmental claims are likely to be misleading if they consist of vague and general statements of environmental benefits without appropriate substantiation of the benefit and without indication of the relevant aspect of the product the claim refers to’[6].
With the amendments of the EmpCo, the UCPD now clarifies what constitutes unfair commercial practices in relation to social and environmental sustainability by introducing new prohibitions to the blacklist of Annex I of the UCPD, amending the definition of main characteristics of products, and introducing new misleading claims that are prohibited following a case-by-case assessment.
1. New prohibitions
Annex I of EmpCo adds twelve new prohibitions to the blacklist of prohibited practices of Annex I UTPD:
- Sustainability labels that are not based on a certification scheme in line with EmpCo’s requirements or not established by public authorities;
- Generic environmental claims such as ‘green’, ‘carbon-friendly’, nature-positive’ without recognised excellent environmental performance;
- Environmental claims about the entire product or the entire business when it concerns only a certain aspect or a specific activity of the business;
- Claims of neutral, reduced or positive impacts on the environment in terms of greenhouse gas emissions;
- Promoting legal requirements as a distinctive feature, e.g. advertising a warranty of two years which is mandatory by law always;
- Withholding information from consumers about negative impacts of software updates, for example phone updates that will slow it down because it exceeds the phone’s technical capabilities;
- Presenting a software update as necessary when it only enhances functionality;
- Promoting products that contain features that limit its durability, for example phones with a planned battery life span of two years;
- False claims of certain durability under normal conditions;
- False claims regarding repairability;
- Inducing consumers prematurely to replace or refill essential parts the product for technical reasons;
- Not communicating that products might not work as well when using non-original parts, or falsely claiming that such impairment will happen.
Sustainability labels play an important role in corporate practice but have not always been reliable in the past. Displaying sustainability labels that are not based on certifications schemes or not established by public authorities is banned. Certification schemes furthermore must meet the following requirements:
- Certification must be based on independent third-party verification;
- The schemes’ requirements must be publicly available;
- Compliance must be monitored by competent and independent third parties based on international, Union, or national standards and procedures;
- The scheme must be transparent, credible, and open to all traders on non-discriminatory terms;
- The scheme’s requirements must be developed in consultation with relevant experts and stakeholders;
- The scheme must have procedures for dealing with non-compliance and provide for the withdrawal or suspension of the use of the label in case of non-compliance.
Instead of creating a meta-standard that sets forth material requirements that certification schemes need to assess (such as requirements regarding working conditions, child labour etc.), the EmpCo provides for requirements regarding the credibility and reliability of certification schemes.
Generic environmental claims – which are prohibited unless excellent environmental performance can be verified – are ‘environmental claim[s] made in written or oral form, including through audiovisual media, that [are] not included on a sustainability label and where the specification […] is not provided in clear and prominent terms on the same medium’[7]. Examples include ‘eco-friendly’, ‘green’, ‘climate friendly’, ‘biodegradable’, ‘ecological’, ‘energy efficient’, or ‘biodegradable’[8]. Excellent environmental performance can be demonstrated through compliance with the EU Ecolabel Regulation[9], national or regional EN ISO 14024 type I ecolabelling schemes officially recognised in the Member States, or top environmental performance for a specific characteristic in accordance with other Union laws.[10]
2. Misleading claims requiring a case-by-case assessment
The EmpCo amends the UCPT’s definition of main characteristics of products to include environmental and social characteristics.[11] Such claims are banned if they are false and deceive or are likely to deceive the average consumer and cause or are likely to cause a transactional decision that would otherwise not have been taken.[12] Additionally, EmpCo expands the list of commercial practices that are misleading in their factual context:
- Environmental claims related to future environmental performance without clear, objective, publicly available and verifiable commitments that are regularly and independently verified;
- Advertising irrelevant benefits to consumers.
3. EmpCo and Human Rights and Environmental Due Diligence (HREDD)
While the EmpCo does not prescribe due diligence, it does prohibit misleading claims in relation to social and environmental characteristics of products. Making claims regarding social sustainability for example regarding human rights in general or regarding specific aspects like working conditions or child labour is risky when companies lack information regarding their supply chains. As HREDD cannot provide full transparency and guarantee that certain conditions are met, companies should be careful when making statements like ‘child labour free’. When implementing it effective and appropriate due diligence, companies claim this in relation to consumers. Future environmental claims must be backed by verified detailed and realistic implementation plans and generic environmental claims must be backed by verified excellent environmental performance. This too requires an environmental management system which could be integrated into HREDD. The EmpCo’s requirement to develop requirements in consultation with relevant experts and stakeholders aligns with the CSRD[13] and the CSDDD[14] which also require stakeholder engagement. Furthermore, the CSDDD recognises both the relevance of third-party verification and its shortcomings and requires the Commission to publish guidance setting out fitness criteria, criteria for the assessment of the fitness of third-party verifiers, and guidance for monitoring the accuracy, effectiveness and integrity of third-party verification.
4. How companies can prepare
In order to minimise risks, companies
- Assess claims in relation to sustainability and prioritise claims that can be changed easily (for example in online communication) and claims that are particularly important (e.g. regarding key products), stop making blacklisted and false claims;
- Collect and document information backing social and environmental claims as well as information regarding attempts to comply with EmpCo (including potentially reasons why compliance hasn’t been achieved yet);
- Add information to durability, repairability, and software updates to product information;
- Define responsibilities and processes including in relation to HREDD in the supply chain if claims relating to human rights or social or environmental sustainability are made;
- Assess conformity of labels and cover labels or provide additional information at the point of sale if labels do not meet the EmpCo’s requirements.
[1] Directive (EU) 2024/825 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 28 February 2024 amending Directives 2005/29/EC and 2011/83/EU as regards empowering consumers for the green transition through better protection against unfair practices and through better information (EmpCo).
[2] The European Green Deal, Striving to be the first climate-neutral continent, Website of the EU Commission, available at: https://commission.europa.eu/strategy-and-policy/priorities-2019-2024/european-green-deal_en.
[3] Directive 2005/29/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 May 2005 concerning unfair business-to-consumer commercial practices in the internal market and amending Council Directive 84/450/EEC, Directives 97/7/EC, 98/27/EC and 2002/65/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council and Regulation (EC) No 2006/2004 of the European Parliament and of the Council (‘Unfair Commercial Practices Directive’) (UCPD).
[4] Recital 1 EmpCo.
[5] EU Commission: Questions & Answers to the Empowering Consumers Directive, June 2026, p. 5.
[6] Examples of such claims are ‘environmentally friendly’, ‘eco-friendly’, ‘eco’, ‘green’, ‘nature’s friend’, ‘ecological’, ‘environmentally correct’, ‘climate friendly’, ‘gentle on the environment’, ‘pollutant free’, ‘biodegradable’, ‘zero emissions’, ‘carbon friendly’, ‘reduced CO 2 emissions’ ‘carbon neutral’, ‘climate neutral’ and even the broader claims of ‘conscious’ and ‘responsible’.’, EU Commission Guidance on the interpretation and application of Directive 2005/29/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council concerning unfair business-to-consumer commercial practices in the internal market, 29 December 2021, Official Journal of the European Union, C 526/1, p. 76.
[7] Article 2(1)(p) UCPT as amended by Article 1(1)(b) EmpCo.
[8] Recital 8,9 EmpCo.
[9] Regulation (EC) No 66/2010 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 November 2009 on the EU Ecolabel.
[10] Article 2(1)(s) UCPT as amended by Article 1(1)(b) EmpCo.
[11] Article 6(1)(b) UCPT as amended by Article 1(2)(a) EmpCo.
[12] Article 6(1) UCPT.
[13] Directive (EU) 2022/2464 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 14 December 2022 amending Regulation (EU) No 537/2014, Directive 2004/109/EC, Directive 2006/43/EC and Directive 2013/34/EU, as regards corporate sustainability reporting.
[14] Directive (EU) 2024/1760 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 June 2024 on corporate sustainability due diligence and amending Directive (EU) 2019/1937 and Regulation (EU) 2023/2859.
Suggested citation: M. Streibelt, ‘Combatting Green Washing and Promoting More Sustainable Consumption: The EU Empowering Consumers Directive ‘, NOVA BHRE Blog, 15 September 2026