Green Claims verifier workflow for explicit environmental claims

Create one record for each public wording variant. The record should capture the exact claim text, where it will appear, the product, part, service, packaging, trader activity, or organisation boundary it covers, and whether the audience is EU consumers.

Classify whether the claim is a voluntary explicit environmental claim, an environmental label or labelling-scheme claim, a comparative claim, a climate or carbon-credit claim, a future-performance claim, or a claim already governed by more specific EU rules such as the EU Ecolabel, energy label, or organic rules. Do not send vague wording such as green, eco-friendly, or sustainable to verification unless the wording has been narrowed to a specific substantiated environmental characteristic.

Before submission, assemble a substantiation file that lets a verifier test the claim against the same boundary the consumer will see. The file should connect the public wording to scientific evidence, product or trader boundaries, methods used, primary data, secondary data, assumptions, limitations, and any excluded life-cycle stages.

The file should prove significance from a life-cycle perspective, not merely show that one metric improved. If the claim is comparative, include the compared products or traders, baseline year where relevant, equivalent data sources, equivalent value-chain coverage, and consistent assumptions. If the claim uses carbon credits or speaks about future performance, keep the emissions, reductions, removals, credit quantity, scheme, registry, implementation plan, targets, milestones, and monitoring evidence separate from ordinary product-impact evidence.

The verifier package should be narrow enough for a conformity assessment. Submit the claim wording, substantiation file, consumer-facing summary, label or scheme materials where relevant, method and data annexes, owner contacts, and publication context. Keep sales copy and campaign rationale outside the evidence file unless they affect what the consumer will understand.

For ordinary explicit environmental claims, the Council general approach describes verification before the claim is generated by the trader. For environmental labelling schemes and corresponding labels, the scheme owner submits the scheme and label materials for verification unless an exemption applies. If the claim falls under a future simplified procedure or a recognised label exception, keep the specific technical documentation or recognition evidence in the file instead of assuming the ordinary verifier path.

If verification demonstrates compliance, the verifier issues a certificate of conformity for the claim, environmental label, or labelling scheme. Treat the certificate, verifier contact details, public substantiation summary, claim text, publication mockup, and evidence version as one controlled record. Do not reuse the certificate for broader wording, new products, new markets, or a different environmental characteristic unless that scope is covered.

The Council general approach gives certificates a maximum validity period of five years and describes submission of certificates, review certificates, withdrawals, and updates through the Internal Market Information System, with an up-to-date public certificate list on the Single Digital Gateway. It also preserves a caveat: a certificate does not prevent national authorities or courts from assessing the claim under unfair-commercial-practices rules.

Do not treat verification as a one-time marketing approval. Reopen the file when circumstances may affect the accuracy of the claim, when public wording changes, when the product, supplier, packaging, production process, emissions inventory, carbon-credit reliance, benchmark, label criteria, or use instructions change, or when new scientific evidence changes the assessment.

The Council general approach requires review and update of substantiation when accuracy may be affected and no later than five years from the certificate issue date, or where applicable from when specific technical documentation is made available to competent authorities. Updated substantiation is then subject to verification, while Article 3a claims require updated specific technical documentation.

This page does not present the Green Claims Directive as final law. The grounding material includes the Commission proposal and a Council general approach, so operational teams should use this workflow as verifier-readiness planning and update it against the adopted Directive, national transposition measures, implementing acts, and any final certificate form once available.

Avoid adding final compliance dates, definitive transition deadlines, or a universal certificate template unless those facts are present in adopted source material. The grounded texts support the verifier model, substantiation categories, certificate concept, maximum validity language in the Council text, and review triggers, but not a final adopted implementation calendar for this artifact.