From 27 September 2026, EU Member States apply the measures of Directive (EU) 2024/825. The directive bans generic environmental claims without recognised excellent environmental performance, sustainability labels not based on a certification scheme or set by public authorities, and claims that a product has a neutral, reduced or positive greenhouse-gas impact based on offsetting. The separate Green Claims proposal is a different text.
Count the leaves in a supermarket aisle. A leaf on a package can imply more than the sentence beside it, because environmental communication works through words, symbols and the overall impression. A globe wearing a leaf for a hat can make an environmental claim before anyone reads a word. A claim deserves scrutiny even when it avoids a precise number.
The September deadline has passed.
The Commission counted
A 2020 European Commission study found that 53% of the environmental claims it examined were vague, misleading or unfounded, and 40% were unsubstantiated. Those are the Commission’s own figures, and they describe a market where green words often ran ahead of their proof.
Greenwashing is communication that creates a misleading impression of environmental performance. Text, imagery, labels and even presentation feed it, and the evidence has to support what an audience is likely to understand. A legal finding still depends on the facts and the consumer or advertising law in force.
What does the directive ban?
Start with generic claims. Under EU rules, a generic environmental claim is a broad environmental statement whose specification is not clearly and prominently provided on the same medium. Eco-friendly, printed on a washing-up liquid bottle with nothing beside it, can imply wider benefits than the facts support. The directive bans such claims when they are made without recognised excellent environmental performance relevant to the claim. A claim that carries its specification clearly and prominently on the same medium falls outside that definition, though it still has to be substantiated.
Labels come next. A sustainability label has to be based on a certification scheme or set by public authorities. A leaf the design team drew on a Thursday afternoon has neither.
The third ban reaches deepest into climate marketing. Claims, based on greenhouse-gas offsetting, that a product has a neutral, reduced or positive greenhouse-gas impact join the EU list of unfair commercial practices. A pack of kitchen roll sold as carbon neutral because the brand bought credits elsewhere is the case the provision describes.
Carbon neutral and climate neutral are two distinct ideas. Carbon neutral concerns CO₂ emissions balanced by CO₂ removals over a stated period, while climate neutral counts all greenhouse gases and land-surface effects such as albedo. Companies use both phrases loosely, so check which gases, boundaries and credits sit behind any claim.
Claims about an entire product or business based only on one limited aspect also receive attention. A jacket sold as sustainable because its zip is recycled shows the problem. A reader should be able to tell which part of an activity the evidence covers, and that evidence should be available when the claim is made.
Can companies still fund climate projects?
Yes. The prohibition concerns the claim made about the product, and supporting climate projects remains lawful. Shortening the rule into a ban on climate finance gets the law wrong.
Funding and outcomes are separate things too. Climate finance means money directed towards mitigation or adaptation, and a finance total does not itself demonstrate an achieved climate result.
The accounting points the same way. Under the GHG Protocol, a company’s inventory counts its own emissions across Scopes 1, 2 and 3, and supporting reductions elsewhere does not automatically shrink it. A company can report that it funded climate action outside its value chain, provided the wording avoids suggesting that its products now have a reduced or neutral emissions impact. The term for that is a contribution claim.
The directive polices the sentence on the box. The project behind it can carry on.
Is this the Green Claims Directive?
No. Green Claims Directive is the name commonly used for a separate EU proposal on substantiating and communicating explicit environmental claims. Similar names can conceal different legal status and obligations.
Directive (EU) 2024/825 is enacted law. It amends existing EU consumer-protection rules, and Member States were required to adopt and publish transposing measures by 27 March 2026 and must apply them from 27 September 2026. Calling it a new greenwashing regulation misses both its legal form and its relationship with national law.
The obligations sit in consumer law. They govern marketing aimed at the public, and businesses meet them through national measures, so exact wording and enforcement can differ between countries. A headline announcing that Brussels banned something deserves one follow-up question about which text it means.
Where ClimateCurrent fits
ClimateCurrent runs a membership platform for climate action. Companies can take part now and pay for places for their people under the company terms. For yourself, keep your place and follow the work. A contribution is not an offset, and it makes nobody climate neutral or carbon neutral, so we have no neutrality claim to print.
Follow the projects we co-finance and our first site. We’ll publish what the work achieves, with its method and sources. Companies can take part now. Joining for yourself opens in November.
This article introduces the EU text for general readers. For a particular campaign, check the national text in force and the exact context of the message.
Then go back to those leaves and ask what each one rests on.