The Empowering Consumers for the Green Transition Directive is the EU's main anti-greenwashing law for consumer products. It decides which environmental claims and labels a brand may use, and it adds new information duties on durability, repair, software updates and guarantees. It is often shortened to EmpCo or ECGT.
The directive does not create a new standalone law. It amends two existing ones: the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive 2005/29/EC and the Consumer Rights Directive 2011/83/EU. Each EU country had to bring it into national law by 27 March 2026, and the rules apply from 27 September 2026.
What is now banned
The directive adds new practices to the EU blacklist, which are unfair in all circumstances:
- Uncertified sustainability labels: any sustainability label not based on a certification scheme or established by a public authority.
- Generic environmental claims: claims like "eco-friendly" or "green" when the trader cannot show recognized excellent environmental performance relevant to the claim.
- Whole-product claims for one aspect: presenting a claim about one part or activity as if it covered the entire product or business.
- Offset-based neutral claims: saying a product has a neutral, reduced or positive greenhouse gas impact because emissions were offset.
- Legal requirements as a selling point: presenting something every product must do by law as a special feature.
- Early obsolescence practices: hiding features that limit durability, false durability claims, presenting a product as repairable when it is not, pushing early replacement of consumables, and misleading information about software updates or third-party spare parts.
Claims about future environmental performance, such as "net zero by 2040", are also misleading unless backed by a detailed, realistic implementation plan with measurable targets that an independent expert checks regularly.
New information for consumers
Before a sale, traders must now give clearer information on:
- The legal guarantee: a harmonised notice, set by Implementing Regulation (EU) 2025/1960, reminding consumers of their two-year legal guarantee of conformity.
- Commercial guarantees of durability: a harmonised label, known as GARAN, when the producer offers a free durability guarantee for the whole product longer than two years.
- Repair: a reparability score where one exists under EU law, such as a repairability index, and information on spare parts and repair where available.
- Software updates: how long the producer provides updates for goods with digital elements, where the information is available.
These duties sit alongside the wider EU right to repair rules.
What it means for your products
Many common marketing phrases need checking against the new rules. Packaging, product pages, retailer listings and advertising all count. A brand that relies on a self-created eco badge, an offset-based "climate neutral" logo or vague words like "sustainable" now faces enforcement by national consumer authorities.
Specific, verifiable data becomes the safe route. Material composition, recycled content, a measured product carbon footprint or a durability figure can all be stated if they are accurate and evidenced. That is the same kind of data the Digital Product Passport under ESPR will hold, so the two rules point in the same direction.
How to prepare
- Audit every environmental claim on packaging, product pages, ads and retailer feeds.
- Remove or replace generic claims and any self-made sustainability labels.
- Rewrite climate claims so they describe actual reductions, not offsets.
- Add the harmonised guarantee notice to stores and online shops, and the GARAN label where you offer a qualifying durability guarantee.
- Keep the evidence behind every claim, and check national rules such as France's AGEC law, which add their own product information duties.
How Veribl helps
Veribl puts durability, repair and guarantee information where customers look for it: on the product page behind the QR code, with interactive manuals, repair guides and spare parts in 24 EU languages. The same page can show the product's Digital Product Passport data, so environmental information is backed by the passport record.
See product manuals and guides in VeriblOfficial sources
Frequently asked questions
When does the Empowering Consumers Directive apply?
Member States had to adopt their national rules by 27 March 2026 and apply them from 27 September 2026. From that date, the new banned practices and information duties apply to traders selling to consumers in every EU country.
Can I still say my product is eco-friendly or green?
Only if you can show recognized excellent environmental performance relevant to the claim, for example under the EU Ecolabel. Otherwise generic environmental claims such as eco-friendly, green, ecological or climate friendly are banned. A specific, accurate claim about a specific aspect of the product, with evidence, is still allowed.
Are carbon-neutral claims banned?
Claims that a product has a neutral, reduced or positive impact on the environment in terms of greenhouse gas emissions are banned when they are based on offsetting emissions. Companies can still communicate genuine reductions in the product's own footprint, and can describe their contributions to climate projects in other ways, as long as the claim is accurate.
What sustainability labels are still allowed?
Only labels based on a certification scheme with third-party verification, or labels established by public authorities. Self-made sustainability badges and logos that do not meet that test are banned from 27 September 2026.
What is the harmonised guarantee notice and the GARAN label?
Traders must show a harmonised notice explaining the two-year legal guarantee of conformity, in stores and online. Where a producer offers a free commercial guarantee of durability covering the whole product for more than two years, a harmonised label must be shown for that product. The design of both is fixed by Implementing Regulation (EU) 2025/1960.
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