Green claims after 27 September 2026: what you can still say about your packaging

Since 27 September 2026, Directive (EU) 2024/825 on empowering consumers for the green transition has applied across the EU. It adds environmental claims to the list of commercial practices that are banned in all circumstances under the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive. It governs what a business says to consumers, so it applies to the words on your packaging and on your shop, and it applies whether you wrote the claim or copied it from a supplier's datasheet.

What is now banned outright

• Generic environmental claims you cannot back with recognised excellent environmental performance. The directive's own examples include "environmentally friendly", "eco-friendly", "green", "ecological", "climate friendly", "biodegradable" and "biobased". Recognised excellent performance means, for example, an EU Ecolabel or an officially recognised ISO 14024 ecolabel for that product. A claim stops being generic when the specific basis for it is stated clearly and prominently in the same place, such as "box made from 90% post-consumer recycled board" on the box.
• Sustainability labels that are not based on a certification scheme or set up by a public authority. A leaf logo you designed yourself is now a banned practice.
• Whole-product claims for one aspect. "Sustainable packaging" for a box where only the board is recycled and the window is virgin plastic.
• Offsetting claims. Saying a product has a neutral, reduced or positive climate impact because emissions were offset. The directive's examples include "climate neutral", "CO2 neutral certified", "carbon positive" and "climate compensated".

What about the Green Claims Directive?

A separate proposal would have set out how environmental claims must be substantiated and checked before use. The Commission announced in June 2025 that it intended to withdraw it, negotiations stopped, and it has not been adopted. The bans above do not depend on it and apply now. The Council's page on green claims tracks both.

Packaging already printed

National consumer authorities agreed a common approach to old stock in June 2026. They expect businesses to take timely, good-faith steps such as correcting online claims and changing future print runs, may take a phased approach where there are genuine transitional difficulties, and may avoid demanding recalls or destruction where that would be disproportionate. It is a statement of enforcement approach, not an exemption, so the next print run is the one to fix.

What this means when you buy

1. Ask what each claim on a datasheet is based on, in a sentence you could print. "Compostable" should come with a standard, a certificate and whether it is industrial or home.
2. Prefer specific numbers and certificate numbers over adjectives. They are what you are allowed to repeat.
3. Drop "carbon neutral" from your own copy if it rests on offsets, whatever the supplier says.
4. Keep the evidence. If a claim is challenged, "the supplier told us" is not a defence for a claim you made to your own customers.

This is the same test our score applies: a claim counts in full when we have seen the evidence and half when it is the supplier's word. A listing that is mostly self-declared is also a listing whose claims you would struggle to repeat.