Environmental claims and unfair commercial practices

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Dario Dongo - Andrea Adelmo Della Penna
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The directive on environmental claims, transposed into Italian law through an update to the Consumer Code, is on the starting line. The new rules — applicable from 27 September 2026 — extend the framework and multi-million-euro penalties established for unfair and misleading commercial practices to information relating to the environmental and social performance of products and organisations. Particular attention is paid to generic claims, and also to ‘implicit’ ones. Below is a brief summary of the new provisions, in the light of the Questions & Answers published by the European Commission.

Environmental claims vs green claims

The Empowering Consumers for the Green Transition Directive, ECGT Directive (EU) 2024/825 reforms the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive (UCPD), Directive 2005/29/EC, to extend the framework on misleading commercial practices to so-called environmental claims, with the aim of countering the phenomenon of greenwashing.

Legislative Decree No. 30/2026 — applicable from 27 September 2026 — transposes the ECGT Directive in Italy by amending Legislative Decree No. 206/2005 (Consumer Code), which had in turn transposed the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive. This decree introduces the following new definitions:

  • environmental claim: ‘in the context of a commercial communication, any message or representation that is not mandatory under Union or national law, in any form, including text and pictorial, graphic or symbolic representations, such as marks, brand names, company names or product names, that states or implies that a given product, product category, brand or trader has a positive or zero environmental impact, or is less harmful to the environment than other products, product categories, brands or traders, or has improved its impact over time‘;
  • generic environmental claim: ‘any environmental claim made in writing or orally, including through audiovisual media, not included in a sustainability label and whose specification is not provided in clear and prominent terms through the same communication medium‘ (Art. 18, para. 1, letters n-quater and n-quinquies).

Green claims are instead the subject of the proposal for the eponymous directive (Green Claims Directive), which was intended to complement and harmonise the provisions on environmental claims for products placed on the market. After a lively initial debate in the European Parliament and Council, on 20 June 2025 the Commission announced its intention to withdraw the directive proposal, although the relevant ordinary procedure remains formally active (OEIL Parliament).

Environmental claims and misleading commercial practices

The ECGT Directive establishes the cases in which a commercial practice may be considered misleading — where it contains false information and is therefore untruthful, or is otherwise capable of deceiving the average consumer — with particular regard to:

  • environmental or social characteristics;
  • aspects related to circularity, such as durability, repairability or recyclability.

In cases of comparison between different products with respect to such characteristics, the ECGT Directive assigns relevance to information relating to:

  • the method of comparison;
  • the terms of comparison;
  • the suppliers of the products compared;
  • the measures put in place to ensure that the information is kept up to date. Failure to do so may give rise to ‘misleading omissions’.

A commercial practice is also considered misleading where it may induce the average consumer into error through:

  • ‘an environmental claim relating to future environmental performance without including clear, objective, publicly available and verifiable commitments set out in a detailed and realistic implementation plan that includes measurable targets and precise deadlines, as well as other relevant elements necessary to support its implementation, such as the allocation of resources, and that is periodically verified by an independent third party, whose conclusions are made available to consumers‘.

Questions and answers from the European Commission

The Commission’s Questions & Answers (Q&A) document aims to facilitate alignment by economic operators and competent authorities with the new provisions, ahead of their application from 27 September 2026.

The Q&A follows a guidance document published by the Commission in 2021 (C/2021/9320) and will be followed by a consolidated update of the Commission’s communication on unfair commercial practices. The 2021 document does contain certain references to environmental claims (see section 4.1.1), but does not take into account the reform subsequently introduced by the ECGT Directive.

Scope

The ECGT Directive constitutes a reform of the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive (UCPD) and is intended to regulate only commercial practices addressed to consumers (B2C). ‘Commercial practices’ therefore include any act, omission or communication directly connected with the promotion, sale or supply of a product to consumers.

Assessing the compliance of commercial practices must first take into account the nature and content of the environmental claims. The ECGT Directive distinguishes in particular two scenarios:

  • specific prohibitions of greenwashing, the identification of which requires a case-by-case assessment (transactional decision test) to determine whether the commercial practice may be classified as ‘unfair’ or ‘misleading’;
  • specific prohibitions on practices that are considered always misleading, listed in the relevant blacklist (see Annex I). Among the always-prohibited practices introduced by the ECGT Directive, the following are noteworthy:
    • displaying a sustainability label that is not based on a certification scheme or established by a public authority (e.g. SQNZ for ‘sustainable farming’, in Italy);
    • making a generic environmental claim in relation to which the economic operator is unable to demonstrate the recognised excellence of the relevant environmental performance;
    • making an environmental claim about the product as a whole or the trader’s activity as a whole when its scope concerns only a specific aspect of the product or a specific element of the trader’s activity;
    • claiming, solely on the basis of greenhouse gas emission offsets, that a product has a neutral, reduced or positive environmental impact in terms of GHGs emissions;
    • presenting legally required criteria on the Union market for all products belonging to a given category (e.g. integrated pest management in agriculture) as if they were a distinctive feature of the trader’s offering.

This prohibition does not apply where the legal requirements apply only to some products but not to other competing products in the same category that are effectively available on the Union market, such as products of extra-EU origin (ECGT Directive, recital 15).

Implicit and generic claims

Reference to a positive or neutral environmental impact may be explicit or implicit. In the latter case, it is necessary to consider the various factors that could mislead the consumer (where the information is not truthful, or is generic and not substantiated by environmental claims consistent with the legislation under examination), such as graphics on the label, the choice of colours, images and/or symbols, sounds and words. It is therefore essential to pay attention not only to label layout and packaging design, but also to the full range of tools and methods used in the presentation and promotion of products.

Generic environmental claims are not permitted, unless combined with substantiated environmental claims that comply with the criteria established in the ECGT Directive. Some examples:

  • expressions such as ‘green‘, ‘carbon friendly/neutral‘, ‘environmentally friendly‘ and equivalents are in themselves considered generic claims, unless they are included in sustainability labels subject to a certification scheme or to rules established by a public authority (ECGT Directive, recitals 8 and 9);
  • presenting a package as ‘environmentally friendly‘, without further specification, is in itself a generic claim. It must therefore be accompanied by a specific environmental indication, such as a reference to the use of 100% renewable energy and/or resources.

Sustainability labels

Sustainability labels (transposed into Italian law as etichette di sostenibilità) are defined as ‘any voluntary trust mark, quality mark or equivalent, public or private, which aims to distinguish and promote a product, a process or an undertaking with reference to its environmental or social characteristics, or both, excluding mandatory marks required under Union or national law‘.

The adoption of a sustainability label requires the establishment of a third-party certification system, in order to verify and certify that a product, process or undertaking complies with the requirements established for use of the label, which must be publicly accessible and must satisfy the following criteria:

  • the system, under transparent, fair and non-discriminatory conditions, is open to all interested economic operators capable of meeting its requirements;
  • the system’s requirements are developed by the system owner, in consultation with sector experts and stakeholders;
  • the system establishes procedures to address cases of non-compliance with the system’s requirements and provides for the suspension or revocation of the licence to use the sustainability label in the event of the economic operator’s non-compliance with the system’s requirements;
  • monitoring of the economic operator’s compliance with the system’s requirements is subject to an objective procedure and is carried out by a third-party body whose competence and independence — from both the system owner and the economic operator — are based on international, Union or national standards and procedures.

Among the various labels that may qualify as sustainability labels in the food sector, the following are noteworthy:

  • organic (‘bio’, ‘eco’): this is a sustainability label fully compliant with the ECGT Directive, as it is based on the specific conditions of use established by Regulation (EU) 2018/848 and is subject to a dedicated certification system;
  • private labels: the compliance of a label — even if registered — must be assessed on a case-by-case basis, depending on the terms used (e.g. ‘green’, ‘eco’) and the overall presentation, taking also into account the graphic elements and colours used;
  • certification marks: such marks too, governed under Directive (EU) 2015/2436 on trade marks (e.g. Fairtrade, Marine Stewardship Council, Rainforest Alliance, B Corp), may fall within the scope of the ECGT Directive. Any label not compliant with the latter is subject to a prohibition on registration or to nullity;
  • vegetarian/vegan: any implied suggestion of environmental or social benefits (for example, vegan = better for the planet) could constitute a generic and potentially misleading environmental claim.

Social sustainability

Product sustainability, it should be noted, encompasses not only environmental aspects but also social ones, which include elements relating to the quality and fairness of working conditions, such as adequate wages, social protection, occupational safety and social dialogue, fair remuneration and other relevant ethical aspects (e.g. animal welfare, in livestock supply chains). These aspects must be taken into account both in consumer-facing claims and in cases of adoption of sustainability labels.

Sustainability assessment

The ECGT Directive does not specify the assessment methods to be used or the certification schemes to be followed. European legislation and international standards do however offer some examples of applicable voluntary standards:

  • Life Cycle Assessment (LCA): a structured and internationally standardised method for quantifying the potential environmental and human health impacts associated with a good or service, based on its respective resource consumption and emissions. The main reference standards are ISO 14040:2006 and ISO 14044:2006;
  • Social Life Cycle Assessment (S-LCA): a method that applies LCA principles to calculate the social impact of processes and products. The reference standards are ISO 14075:2024 and the guidelines of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Life Cycle Initiative;
  • Commission Recommendation (EU) 2021/2279 on the use of Environmental Footprint methods: provides methods for calculating the product environmental footprint (Product Environmental Footprint, PEF) and organisation environmental footprint (Organisation Environmental Footprint, OEF);
  • Eco-Management and Audit Scheme (EMAS), established by Regulation (EC) No 1221/2009: EU and non-EU organisations may join on a voluntary basis, with a view to promoting continuous improvement of environmental performance through the establishment and implementation of environmental management systems, the systematic, objective and periodic assessment of the performance of those systems, the provision of information on environmental performance, and other provisions.

Operators registered under the EMAS scheme are listed in the dedicated register, based on the statistical classification of economic activities (NACE 2.1) (https://webgate.ec.europa.eu/emas2/public/registration/list), which also covers the food sector.

Elements irrelevant to consumers

‘Another potentially misleading commercial practice to add to the specific practices […] is that of advertising as advantages for consumers characteristics that are irrelevant and not directly linked to any characteristic of the specific product or company in question and that could induce consumers to believe that they are more advantageous for consumers, the environment or society compared to other products or companies of economic operators of the same type, for example claiming that a particular brand of bottled water is gluten-free or that sheets of paper do not contain plastic‘ (ECGT Directive, recital 5).

Provisional conclusions

The reform under examination extends the application of the European Unfair Commercial Practices Directive to a broad range of information still currently used in the labelling, presentation and advertising of food products and fast-moving consumer goods more generally. Operators in the industry and in distribution — both physical and online — now find themselves facing a systematic review of the content and methods of consumer information relating to their products and to their organisations themselves, in order to prevent the risk of extremely burdensome penalties (up to €10 million or 4% of the operator’s turnover in Italy, depending on the case).

Our FARE (Food and Agriculture Requirements) team is available to operators who wish to reconcile their marketing objectives with the need to ensure regulatory compliance, following a ‘regulatory by-design‘ approach (compliance with regulations built in from the design phase).

Dario Dongo and Andrea Adelmo Della Penna

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Bibliography

Dario Dongo
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Dario Dongo, lawyer and journalist, PhD in international food law, founder of WIISE (FARE - GIFT - Food Times) and Égalité.

FOOD TIMES_ ANDREA ADELMO DELLA PENNA
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Graduated in Food Technologies and Biotechnologies, qualified food technologist, he follows the research and development area. With particular regard to European research projects (in Horizon 2020, PRIMA) where the FARE division of WIISE Srl, a benefit company, participates.

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