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Goodbye greenwashing? EU ban on vague claims comes into force

Food and drink brands must comply with EU anti-greenwashing rules that ban vague claims – but they do not have to stay silent on sustainability.

Food and drink companies making any environmental claims have to tread carefully as new anti-greenwashing rules come into play across the EU. Even the use of images associated with sustainability, such as leaves, trees, or green branding, is now prohibited in most cases.

At a glance:

• New anti-greenwashing rules now apply across the EU, banning vague ‘green’ claims and designs.
• Not all countries have transposed the EmpCo Directive into national law.
• Claims based on carbon offsetting outside a product’s value chain are prohibited.

“What may surprise businesses is just how wide-ranging these new rules are,” Dominic Watkins, head of consumer markets at law firm DWF, told Ingredients Network. “For many businesses, the biggest risk is not what they say, but what consumers might think they are saying,” he added.

The EU's Empowering Consumers for the Green Transition Directive (Directive (EU) 2024/825, also known as the EmpCo Directive) amends the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive (UCPD) and the Consumer Rights Directive (CRD) to tackle greenwashing and misleading sustainability claims.

The changes follow analysis by the European Commission which found 53% of green claims made by corporations in the EU market were based on vague, misleading, or unfounded information. Also, 40% had no supporting evidence at all, and around half of all ‘eco labels’ had poor quality or non-existent verification.

Any claims now require “hard evidence” to back them up, lawyers warned. Terms such as ‘eco-friendly’, ‘green’ and ‘carbon neutral’ are likely to disappear from food and drink packaging. Commitments such as ‘net-zero by 2040’ will also need to be accompanied by detailed and realistic implementation plans.

Watkins said the implications of EmpCo go further still.

“Brand and product names containing terms such as 'green' or 'eco' are not automatically exempt, and the European Commission has expressly stated that intellectual property protection does not shield a business from scrutiny under consumer protection law,” he said.

Businesses should also be aware that the rules apply to products already on the market.

“While regulators may adopt a pragmatic approach in practice, the Commission's guidance makes clear that there is no general 'sell-through' provision,” Watkins explained. “As a result, non-compliant claims could be exposed to challenge from the date the rules apply, even where packaging or marketing materials were produced before then,” he added.

How quickly will national regulators enforce the EmpCo rules?

The directive is strictly limited to B2C – business to consumer – practices. Business-to-business (B2B) commercial practices are instead governed by the Misleading and Comparative Advertising Directive (2006/114/EC), the EU Platform-to-Business Regulation (2019/1150) and, for the agricultural and food supply chain, Directive (EU) 2019/633 on unfair trading practices.

The changes to UCPD do not prevent member states from extending their protection to businesses in B2B relations at the national level, but are not yet part of the harmonised EU framework under EmpCo.

Member states were required to transpose the EmpCo Directive into national law by 27 March 2026, with the implementing measures to be applied from 27 September 2026.

However, while the directive is now applicable, transposition and enforcement remain uneven, meaning businesses face a degree of regulatory uncertainty depending on where products are marketed.

“In practice, there is still something of a postcode lottery as to how quickly national regulators will move to enforce the new requirements and how broadly they will interpret them,” said Watkins.

Poland is one of those that is ahead of the game, with the country’s competition and consumer authority (UOKiK) already closely scrutinising environmental claims and sustainability messaging, and stepping up enforcement against greenwashing, according to Monika Hughes at law firm Bird&Bird.

“The businesses likely to be best prepared for EmpCo are those that establish robust internal processes for collecting, verifying and updating product information throughout the supply chain,” she explained, adding: “The new rules will require much closer cooperation between the legal, compliance, marketing, product and procurement teams – and between manufacturers and retailers.”

Whether EmpCo leads to fewer and better environmental claims or no claims is unclear. Experts have suggested companies should not necessarily wipe out all their claims.

“A brand told me this week they have removed everything from the pack, just to be sure,” explained Marieke de Ruyter de Wildt, founder of food traceability firm Open Food Chain, on social media. “I understand the instinct.

“When EmpCo applies, generic environmental claims, offset-only claims and self-made sustainability labels all get much harder to defend. Deleting is the fastest way to be safe. But it also deletes a reason for customers and retailers to choose you.”

Carbon offsetting claims are out

The impact of the new rules on claims relating to carbon offsets – such as ‘carbon neutral’ – has been of particular interest to the food and drink sector. The European Commission’s Q&A published in September 2026 explains that EmpCo “prohibits: 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”.

This means claims based on carbon offsetting outside a product’s value chain are prohibited. Food and drink companies may still make climate-related claims regarding their products, “as long as these are based on real, verifiable reductions in greenhouse gas emissions throughout the actual product’s lifecycle”, the Commission said.

Companies can still talk about investments in environmental initiatives, including carbon credit or offset projects, “provided this information is presented transparently and is not misleading”.

In a summary of the implications of EmpCo, experts at law firm Ashurst Perkins Coie noted that: “Every environmental claim must be specific, precise and capable of independent verification. Companies should maintain a robust evidence file for each environmental claim before publication, which should be updated as required.”