The EU’s new Directive on Empowering Consumers for the Green Transition, (ECGT) entered into application on Sunday, establishing a series of new rules aimed at protect consumers from deceptive sustainability-related marketing, cracking down on both unverified green claims and hidden product obsolescence.
Adopted by European lawmakers in 2024, the ECGT was designed to protect consumers from misleading green claims and other greenwashing practices, including banning unverified generic environmental claims such as “environmentally friendly,” or “biodegradable” and those communicate that a product has a neutral, reduced or positive emissions impact based on GHG offsetting schemes.
The legislation amended existing directives protecting consumers from unfair commercial practices, including the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive (UCPD) and the Consumer Rights Directive (CRD), to include green transition and circular economy-related aspects. At the time that it initially proposed the amendments, the Commission noted studies indicating that more than half of green claims by companies in the EU were vague or misleading, and 40% were completely unsubstantiated.
Key aspects of the directive include rules aimed at making product labels clearer by banning the use of generic environmental claims not backed up with proof, and the regulation of sustainability labels to allow only the use of those based on official certification schemes or established by public authorities.
The directive also includes rules focused on product durability, requiring guarantee information on products to be more visible, and mandating the creation of a harmonized label to give more prominence to goods with an extended guarantee period, as well as banning unfounded durability claims, prompts to replace consumables earlier than strictly necessary, or presenting goods as repairable when they are not.
Additional rules established by the new directive include strict criteria for forward-looking climate pledges, requiring companies advertising future environmental targets to provide a detailed, realistic and publicly available implementation plan with time-bound targets and allocated resources, alongside verification by an independent third-party expert.
The ECGT directive formed part of a package of consumer-oriented environmental and circular economy-focused proposals by the EU Commission, which also included the ecodesign regulation, and the directive proposals on green claims. While the ecodesign regulation, enabling the adoption of requirements for a wide range of products to improve their environmental sustainability, is active and moving through its multi-year implementation period, the implementation of the green claims directive, aimed at protecting consumers from greenwashing claims about the environmental attributes of products and services, was effectively paused last year over concerns about the regulation’s impact on small businesses, and has yet to be revisited.
