Green Claims

The Green Claims Directive was proposed by the European Commission in March 2023. Its aim was to complement the EmpCo Directive by setting out detailed criteria for substantiating and independently verifying explicit environmental claims and environmental labels before they could be used on the market.

The proposal included, among other things, minimum requirements for the scientific basis and methodology of environmental claims, for example based on life-cycle assessments; mandatory verification by accredited, independent bodies prior to the publication of such claims; and rules to curb the proliferation of private, often non-transparent sustainability labels.

In June 2025, the European Commission announced its intention to withdraw the proposal. This followed political pressure, particularly from the European People's Party group, which criticized the planned requirements, above all the mandatory third-party verification, as disproportionately burdensome and costly, especially for small and micro enterprises. The trilogue negotiations planned for late June 2025 were subsequently cancelled. The proposal has not formally been withdrawn to date, so its procedural status remains legally open but politically inactive.

Despite this uncertainty, the core aim of the Green Claims Directive, the verifiability of environmental claims, remains indirectly addressed through the EmpCo Directive and general unfair commercial practices law. Companies are therefore well advised to document and substantiate explicit environmental claims in a verifiable way today, regardless of the further fate of the Green Claims Directive.