The Green Claims Directive is no more. It has ceased to be. It has expired and gone to meet its maker. It is an ex-directive.
Unlike Monty Python's Norwegian Blue, the Green Claims Directive wasn't nailed to its perch. It just sat in the cage for more than three years while everyone politely pretended it was resting. On 4 November 2026, however, the European Commission finally admitted what the rest of us had suspected for some time. It published its 2027 Work Programme, and the Green Claims Directive is in Annex III, the list of proposals the Commission intends to withdraw. The Commission first proposed it in March 2023. Its own explanation is that the file has been stuck with the co-legislators for more than three years and is unlikely to win support in the Council within a reasonable timeframe. That's Brussels for "pining for the fjords".
The Directive would have regulated how green claims are substantiated and communicated. It would also have thinned out the jungle of eco labels and trust marks. So should advertisers be popping the (recyclable, responsibly sourced) champagne? Not quite. The Empowering Consumers for the Green Transition Directive (ECGT) has been quietly doing the heavy lifting since 27 September 2026, when member states had to start applying it. It amends the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive (UCPD). That is a maximum harmonisation directive, so national laws can't water it down or gold-plate it, except where the ECGT expressly allows. Nor can UK brands shrug it off. If you sell to EU consumers, you can face claims and regulatory action under the local implementing laws, whatever your choice of law clause says.
So, what's so tough about it? Quite a lot.
First, generic claims. "Eco-friendly", "green", "biodegradable" and "carbon friendly" are now banned outright, unless you can show recognised excellent environmental performance relevant to the claim, such as the EU Ecolabel, an officially recognised EN ISO 14024 scheme, or top performance under other EU law, such as an A energy rating. "Climate-friendly packaging" is generic and also banned. "100% of energy used to produce this packaging comes from renewable sources" is a specific claim, so it escapes the ban. Don't think you can dodge the ECGT with "sustainable", "conscious" or "responsible", either. Those words cover social characteristics as well as environmental ones, so recognised excellent environmental performance alone can't support them. And if your brand name includes "green" or "eco", the Commission thinks that can amount to a claim in itself. For example, Lufthansa, the German airline, has changed the name of its 'Green Fare' to 'Impact Fare'. According to Lufthansa, "The new name places even stronger emphasis on customers' contribution to greater sustainability in aviation and thus reflects new regulatory requirements for environmental communication." You can draw your own conclusions about that. We couldn't possibly comment.
Secondly, offsetting. You can't claim that a product has a neutral, reduced or positive greenhouse gas impact if the claim is based on offsetting. That's prohibited in all circumstances, and the examples given include "climate neutral", "CO2 neutral certified", "carbon positive" and "climate net zero". You can still talk about investing in carbon credit projects, as long as you do so in a way that isn't misleading. But you can't buy your way to carbon neutrality.
Thirdly, net zero promises. A claim about future environmental performance (think "net zero by 2050") will be misleading unless it rests on clear, objective, publicly available and verifiable commitments. Those commitments must sit in a detailed and realistic implementation plan, with measurable, time-bound targets and allocated resources. An independent third-party expert must verify the plan regularly, and the expert's findings must be available to consumers. The recitals add budgets and technological developments to the shopping list. That's a 2050 aspiration turned into a costed project plan, with an auditor marking your homework in public. Good luck with that.
There's more. Claims about your entire product or business are banned where the benefit relates only to one aspect of it. Sustainability labels must be based on a certification scheme with independent monitoring, or be established by public authorities. You can't present legal compliance as a distinctive feature of your offer. And you can't trumpet irrelevant benefits, which is bad news for anyone planning to launch gluten-free bottled water.
Nobody pretends enforcement will be uniform. Sanctions depend on how each member state implemented the UCPD. The Consumer Protection Cooperation (CPC) Network, the official union of national public enforcement authorities across the European Union and the European Economic Area, has offered a phased approach for old stock, but it's non-binding, and online claims are expected to be first in the firing line. Brands relying on the UK position won't find it much gentler. In the UK, the Advertising Standards Authority already tells marketers to avoid unqualified "net zero" claims.
What will be the net effect of the ECGT Directive? We suspect many marketing directors will look at that list, then at their budgets, and decide that the safest environmental claim is the one they never make. We've been worrying about greenhushing on this blog since Virgin Atlantic was rapped over the knuckles for flying the Atlantic on nothing but sustainable aviation fuel. The ECGT will make it the default setting. The Commission has buried one directive in the name of simplification, but the one that survived has made silence golden.
This summer has been the hottest on record in the UK and Western Europe, with widespread droughts and wildfires. While we don't want misleading environmental claims, but if the risk of making a misleading claim is a fine that can run to millions of euros, responsible advertisers will be reluctant to advertise their green innovations. And if they can't confidently advertise, they will be reluctant to invest in environmental innovations and do nothing to combat climate change. The UK's reliance on the ASA to police green claims is a better solution, because the risk of adverse publicity is enough to deter misleading green claims, but not so severe as to hush any and all green claims.
