EU Green Claims Proposal What Counts as a Green Claim

Review the complete communication, not a word in isolation. Identify who communicates it, the intended audience, what product or trader it concerns, whether the message is voluntary, what environmental impression it creates, and whether another EU rule already governs the statement or label.

A "no" at one Green Claims proposal step does not make the communication safe. An implied image may fall outside the proposal's explicit-claim definition but remain an environmental claim under the amended Unfair Commercial Practices Directive. A mandatory disclosure or sector-regulated label may follow its own EU rules. National consumer law and the existing misleading-practice rules continue to apply.

The Council general approach defines an explicit environmental claim as an environmental claim made in writing or orally, including through audiovisual media, while excluding environmental labels. Text on packaging, product pages, ads, sales scripts, videos, marketplace listings, and sustainability pages can qualify when used in a B2C commercial practice.

Directive (EU) 2024/825 uses the broader environmental claim category. It can include non-mandatory text, pictures, graphics, symbols, labels, brand names, company names, or product names in commercial communication. The Green Claims proposal would add a separate substantiation, communication, and verification regime for the explicit subset if an agreed text were adopted.

The Commission describes the proposal as targeting voluntary explicit claims made by businesses to consumers about the environmental impacts, aspects, or performance of a product or the trader itself, where other EU rules do not already cover the claim. The Council text confirms that products include services and that service providers can make claims about themselves or their activities.

The Council text assigns the proposal-stage substantiation duty to the trader that first introduces the claim in a B2C commercial practice and to that trader's later repetition of the claim. It distinguishes a retailer that exactly repeats a claim already communicated to consumers from a trader that takes a B2B-only supplier claim and communicates it to consumers for the first time. Existing consumer-law remedies may still reach retailers after a misleading practice is established.

A statement can be environmental but still fall outside the Green Claims proposal route because another EU act already regulates its substantiation, communication, verification, or label conditions. The Council text gives this as an exclusion for explicit environmental claims, environmental labels, and environmental labelling schemes regulated by specific Union rules.

Directive (EU) 2024/825 amends the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive. Member States had to adopt and publish implementing measures by 27 March 2026 and must apply them from 27 September 2026. From that application date, the new rules cover unsupported generic environmental claims, sustainability labels not based on a certification scheme or established by public authorities, claims about an entire product or business when only one aspect or activity is covered, and product greenhouse-gas neutrality or reduction claims based on offsetting.

The Green Claims institutional texts also exclude sustainability information governed by rules for financial services, financial instruments, and financial products. The Commission proposal would exempt microenterprises from its substantiation and linked communication duties unless they requested a certificate; the Council general approach instead would delay specified core duties for microenterprises until 50 months after entry into force. These actor rules do not change whether the message is an environmental claim, and neither proposal branch is current law.

If the proposal were adopted with the Council approach, its evidence burden would turn on the exact claim boundary. Article 3 in the Council text would require the assessment to specify whether the claim concerns the whole product, part of a product, certain product aspects, all activities of a trader, or a part or aspect of those activities.

For preparation, keep a claim-specific record of recognised scientific evidence, accurate information, relevant methods or standards, significant environmental characteristics from a life-cycle perspective, available primary information, representative secondary information where primary information is unavailable, and the distinction between the claim and minimum legal requirements. The proposal does not currently require EU-wide pre-verification.

A claim inventory should capture both obvious and borderline wording. The Commission examples include recycled packaging content, reduced company footprint, and product-linked CO2 emissions reductions. Directive (EU) 2024/825 adds that names, labels, graphics, and brand or product names may be environmental claims when used in commercial communication.

Treat examples as classification prompts, not reusable approved wording. The evidence file still needs to match the exact claim, the exact product or trader scope, the relevant market, and the applicable EU rule pathway.