Rinsing Out the Greenwash: The EmpCo Directive

On Sept. 27, 2026, the EU’s Directive on Empowering Consumers for the Green Transition became fully applicable across all EU member states. The so-called EmpCo Directive (Directive (EU) 2024/825 on empowering consumers) works to protect consumers from green-washing claims and additionally targets the occurrence of early obsolescence. (The EmpCo directive may also be referred to as the Directive for Empowering Consumers for the Green Transition (ECGT), for clarity.)

Brief Background and Summary

In the EU especially, consumers have a large appetite for buying green products, but certain bad actors across different industries are seen to be exploiting this appetite by using vague or nefarious marketing claims.

Research conducted by the EU found that more than half of the products it sampled made spurious claims about their environmental performance, claims which could be described as misleading, unfounded or just downright vague.

The early obsolescence aspect of the directive builds on the forerunning Unfair Commercial Practices Directive (UCPD) by adding rules on greenwashing claims and adds further rules to the Consumer Rights Directive (CRD) concerning information provision for customers.

The key points of the EmpCo Directive are summarized below:

• The over-arching point of the directive is not the content of any particular product, only the manner in which it is sold and presented to the consumer, so it’s effectively a business-to-consumer (B2C) directive.
• Applicability of the directive is now in effect and pertains to all products that companies already have in the EU’s markets. There is no transition period.
• Use of general terms such as ‘eco-friendly’, ‘green’ or ‘climate friendly’ are now banned unless there is any evidence of outstanding environmental performance.
• Claims pertaining to offset mechanisms such as carbon neutrality are now completely banned.
• Sellers are obliged to display a harmonized durability guarantee label, complete with repairability information for the consumer, including a repair score where EU rules have defined one (see later).
• Sustainability labels are required to come either from public authorities or a real certification scheme where there has been independent third-party verification.

A Far-Reaching Piece of Legislation

The EmpCo Directive is broad in its scope and affects a whole cross-section of industry players beyond the companies that are producing consumer goods.

• Manufacturers clearly have the most work to do. They will need to monitor the pulse at several points: audits of claims made, label verification, lifecycle evidence and future-claim plans. Because durability is a key factor now, that means sharing durability data with retailers.
• Marketing companies need to be especially aware of all of the new requirements, with the implication being that the new checklist should be integral part to the development of marketing campaigns. This also means that marketing agencies need to be on the qui vive for any claims that the companies they represent are making.
• At the retail end (a definition which both includes shops and online retail operations), durability labels will be required and repair scores displayed. Update periods must also be made prominently known.  Where there are any distinctions between a retailer’s own brand and another brand, own-branded goods must also be checked over for compliance.
• One additional specific area is that of fashion. Fast fashion is an industry segment where the EU is hot on the wasteful disposal of high volumes of resources such as unsold fast fashion items. In particular, the EU is gunning for a more genuine match in claims over recycled fabric content with this particular directive; again, it’s a case of clothing companies being able to substantiate their claims.

A Deep Imprint for the Paint Industry

When these anti-greenwashing templates are applied to the paint and coatings sector, they can be envisaged as falling into three key areas:

• Selling: The use of what appears to be eco-friendly labels and graphics (typically blue water or green leaves, for instance) is forbidden across a plethora of marketing and product presentation formats, including paint packaging, data sheets, websites, advertising and any supporting literature, newsletters and product names themselves. This means that paint and coatings companies will have to audit every item of advertising and promotional literature, websites, social media etc. to remove anything that might now contravene the directive. In the domain of packaging for example, it is now no longer sufficient to claim that something is made with recycled packaging, which is just plain vague. Instead, the system is looking for more detailed statements, such as “Made with 60% recycled plastic,” so that the consumer is not so easily hoodwinked.
  
  With this aim in mind, the legislation is rinsing out all the very easy ways in which consumers can be deceived. Claims must be made about something in its entirety, not just a single component of the whole. Similar principles also take hold in other green areas, such as energy, where only one manufacturing location uses green energy; product selling, when only the packaging has had a genuine eco-upgrade; recycling, where only one small component might have been recycled.

• Symbolism: The use of sustainability symbols should avoid employing any company’s own-designed, privately or internally used symbolism on the packaging. Recognized cross-industry symbolism is to be preferred, showing that product sustainability claims have been independently verified. For industry, this will shift the balance further towards the use of the EU eco-label, or Germany’s Blue Angel for instance, or labelling associated with independent authorities or verifications.

• Statements: Claims based on generic terms such as green, eco-friendly, sustainable etc. are now disallowed, unless they can be supported with scientific proof that can be verified. In particular, this will apply to claims regarding circularity, bio-based content and so on, and companies will need to have easy access to materials that will support such claims. Furthermore, any future-oriented statements about long-term environmental or clean aspirations (such as net-zero by a certain year) are required to be objective and independently verified.

Retail and Repair Aspects of the Directive

A harmonized durability label and a harmonized notice on legal guarantee have also now been introduced for retailers, as a result of the directive coming into force. The harmonised durability label is a mark of voluntary guarantee of durability for at least two years; the seller is obliged to show this prominently.  This is also reinforced, complementary-fashion, by the harmonised notice of legal guarantee, which reminds consumers that their products are under guarantee for two years under these rules. This point-of-purchase notice is mandatory for both shop and online retailers.

Repair aspects of the directive are already beginning to affect some high-tech consumers of coatings, namely smartphones and tablets. These are the first products to fall under the umbrella of repairability scoring, having been obliged to be carry energy labels and repairability scores for about the last 15 months now.

Similar to the fast fashion area mentioned earlier, this is another hot topic for the EU based on its relentless focus on resources and the fact that many high-tech electronics items are slowly depleting metal resources. Repairability scores are based on the availability of spare parts and their cost, as well as how easy consumer goods are to take apart and repair. Other electronic and electrical items will join with smartphones and tablets in being subject to repairability scores in the future. All reasonable protections for the consumer but a lot of work for many industry players. For those who have playing by the book all along: not so much to lose!