EmpCo directive: what becomes illegal on 27 September 2026

On 27 September 2026, Directive (EU) 2024/825 becomes applicable. It is known as EmpCo, short for Empowering Consumers for the Green Transition. That leaves roughly five weeks. There is no transition period, no announced tolerance for campaigns already in production, and no extra time to use up packaging that has already been printed.

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This article does not repeat what greenwashing is, nor the distinction between generic and specific environmental claims. Those are covered in our article Greenwashing: definition, examples and penalties. Here there is a single question: would your current campaigns be in breach five weeks from now, and what do you change?

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A note on method. We always use conditional wording. Calling a communication greenwashing is an assessment, never an automatic finding. Only a competent body rules on it formally.

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What the directive changes, in one minute

Directive (EU) 2024/825 was adopted on 28 February 2024. It does not create a standalone regime. It amends two texts that already shape consumer law: Directive 2005/29/EC on unfair commercial practices and Directive 2011/83/EU on consumer rights.

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That is the most important point for anyone running marketing or communications, and the one most often missed. The directive does not merely say that some claims are unwise. It places certain practices inside the unfair commercial practices regime. What is today a matter of advertising ethics, carrying mostly reputational risk, becomes a matter of legal compliance.

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Second point: the transposition deadline was 27 March 2026 and the application date is 27 September 2026, with no transition period. A campaign that goes live on 26 September and is still running on 28 September falls under the new regime, whatever date it was designed.

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Three prohibitions, and what they do to your campaigns

Three categories carry most of the risk. For each one, the cases below are real, drawn from the doctrine we apply every day in our analysis tool Alios.

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1. Unsubstantiated generic environmental claims

A generic environmental claim is a claim that is not part of a sustainability label and whose specification is not provided in clear and prominent terms on the same medium. The definition is technical, its effect is not: eco-friendly, sustainable, green, environmentally friendly, ethical, responsible, good for the planet. Used on their own, all of these become misleading claims unless you can demonstrate recognised excellent environmental performance.

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A few concrete cases, and what they look like once fixed.

• Sustainable bananas, with nothing further. The claim would stay generic. Compliant version: state on the same medium what the word covers, either with a figure tied to the impact or with a recognised external certification that applies to what is being advertised.
• A bank advertising green investments, with no further detail. The claim would stay generic. Compliant version: which share of the portfolio, against which standard, over which period.
• A carton water pack presented as more ecological, alongside the wording 65 % less plastic than the brand's traditional bottles. This case would pass, because it combines a figure tied to the impact with an explicit basis of comparison.
• Furniture described as sustainable because it is FSC certified. This would also pass, the external certification specifying the claim.
• A tech product described as responsible on the strength of a B Corp label. The claim would stay generic, because the evidence sits at the wrong level: the label covers the company, not the product being advertised.
• Apples described as sustainably grown, with an asterisk pointing to the company's own sustainability programme on an external site. The claim would stay generic. Linking out is good practice, but it still does not say what the claimed performance actually consists of.
• A poster promoting responsible delivery while showing several transport modes. The claim would stay generic, since nothing lets the reader measure in what way the delivery is responsible.

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Three nuances are worth knowing, because they save you unnecessary rewrites. An environmental word used purely to frame a topic, such as sustainable mobility in the title of a university event, would not be a generic claim, since it does not promote a product or an organisation. Vegan is not an environmental claim, it describes composition. And in the energy sector, green electricity is accepted under the applicable advertising ethics rules.

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2. Carbon neutrality based on offsetting

The second prohibition is the bluntest: claiming, on the basis of greenhouse gas emissions offsetting, that a product has a neutral, reduced or positive impact on the environment in terms of emissions.

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Carbon neutral, carbon neutrality, zero carbon, climate neutral, net zero and equivalent wording can no longer be used to present a product, a service or a company. A climate neutral product would be out. So would a company announcing it will be carbon neutral by 2050: the micro level is not allowed, even in the future tense.

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What remains possible deserves spelling out, because the rule is often read too broadly.

• Using the concept at macro level is still fine. We are working towards a carbon neutral society, or moving towards European carbon neutrality, would raise no issue.
• Communicating about a reduction or about offsetting, without the vocabulary of neutrality, remains possible. A calculated carbon footprint or offset emissions are not synonyms for carbon neutrality.
• A car advertised as producing zero CO2 emissions in use is not a carbon neutrality claim, since the statement concerns tailpipe emissions.
• A commitment to reach net zero, defined precisely within the communication against a recognised standard and without exaggeration, would remain defensible.

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In practice the test is simple: does the word neutrality describe your product or your company, or does it describe a collective goal? In the first case, take it out.

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3. Unverified sustainability labels

The third prohibition covers sustainability labels that do not rest on a certification scheme verified by a third party. Two distinct problems hide behind that term.

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The first is the self-awarded label. A label created by the brand itself, with no external certification and no accessible explanation, would be liable to mislead. The textbook case is a label-style device carrying wording such as 100 % sustainable cocoa, with no link and no explanation.

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The second is subtler, because it is not even a label. A green circle ringed with small leaves reading 100 % natural ingredients. A green square reading reusable and more ecological. Such devices do not claim to be certifications, but they borrow the visual grammar of one and could suggest official approval. They would be at risk.

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Conversely, recognised and independent labels remain usable as long as their scope is not overstated: EU Ecolabel, FSC, PEFC, MSC, Fairtrade, GOTS, Oeko-Tex and Nordic Swan, among others. The Mobius loop, the Nutri-Score, the eco-score and a Made in Europe mark inside an EU flag roundel would raise no issue either. And a company logo is not a label.

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The Belgian situation: what if Belgium has not transposed?

This is the question everyone asks, and the answer is less comfortable than hoped.

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The transposition deadline of 27 March 2026 was missed by a large share of member states. On 28 May 2026 the European Commission sent letters of formal notice to twenty member states, Belgium and France among them. Today is 21 August 2026 and the application date is approaching without a settled landscape.

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Three practical consequences follow.

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First, missing transposition is not an amnesty. The directive amends the unfair commercial practices regime, which already exists in Belgian law. Enforcement authorities and the ordinary courts already have a framework for dealing with a misleading environmental claim. A campaign resting on a vague, unverifiable adjective would therefore be challengeable regardless of where transposition stands.

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Second, the JEP, Belgium's advertising ethics jury, continues to handle complaints from the public under the sector's own rules, which overlap heavily with the three prohibitions above. That channel depends on no European timetable. It is faster than the courts, and its decisions are public.

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Third, late transposition usually arrives without any retroactive favour for campaigns that ran in the meantime. Betting on the Belgian delay means betting on a risk that catches up with you, not one that goes away. For a campaign entering production today and living for several months, the arithmetic is quick.

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What to check in your campaigns now

A useful audit does not take weeks. It is five passes over your live and upcoming assets, packaging, product pages, email signatures and shop windows included.

Those five passes are easy enough by eye on a line of copy, much less so on a brand film or a printed pack. Alios runs the same sequence on an asset you submit, image, video, audio, PDF or text, and surfaces the passages that would be problematic under the three prohibitions.

• List every environmental adjective in use. For each one, ask whether the same medium, visible without a click, explains concretely what it covers. If not, replace the adjective with a measurable fact, or delete it.
• Check that every comparative figure states its basis of comparison explicitly, and that the basis is legible.
• Search for any use of carbon neutrality vocabulary. At product, service or company level, remove it.
• Review every round or badge-shaped device with a green connotation. If something looks like a label without being one, it has to go or be clearly identified.
• For each label used, check that it is third-party certified and that it actually covers what you are promoting, product or company, and not something else.

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One remark about production lead times. The most exposed assets are the ones with long cycles: packaging, point of sale material, outdoor advertising, catalogues and brand films. Treat those first, because a website line can be fixed in an hour and a printed pack cannot.

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At GiveActions we assess communications against these rules before they run, with our tool Alios. Get in touch if you want your campaigns checked before 27 September.

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