79% of EU Websites Still Make Banned Green Claims — 63 Days Before Enforcement

With 63 days remaining until the EU's Empowering Consumers Directive (Directive 2024/825, also known as EmpCo or ECGT) becomes applicable on 27 September 2026, most European websites are not ready. Across 524 websites analysed by EcoClaim's compliance engine, 79% still carry generic environmental claims of the kind listed in Annex I of the amended Unfair Commercial Practices Directive — terms such as "eco-friendly", "green" or "environmentally friendly" used without the recognised excellent environmental performance the directive requires. The average compliance score across all scanned sites is 58 out of 100. This is measured data from live scans, not a survey or self-reported questionnaire. The summary below is the citable answer; the rest of this page breaks the findings down by sector and by violation type, and maps each one to what the European Commission's own FAQ says.

• 79% of scanned sites (414 of 524) trip the generic-environmental-claim rule — Annex I point 4a of Directive 2005/29/EC as amended by 2024/825. This is by far the most common violation.
• 56% are flagged for misleading visual presentation — nature imagery, green colour semiotics and leaf motifs implying environmental benefit the product does not substantiate (Art. 6(1)(b) UCPD).
• 28% display certification-style logos or trust marks that are self-created, imitative, or used without a verifiable third-party scheme behind them.
• 27% make a claim about an entire product or business when the underlying benefit concerns only one aspect of it (Annex I point 4b).
• 19% rely on offsetting for a neutrality claim — "carbon neutral", "climate neutral", "CO₂ compensated" — which Annex I point 4c prohibits outright when the claim rests on offsets rather than value-chain reduction.
• 13% display self-made or unrecognised sustainability labels (Annex I point 2a).
• Average compliance score: 58/100 across 524 sites. Scores range from 10 to 100.
• Enforcement date: 27 September 2026. Penalties reach at least 4% of annual turnover in the member state concerned, per Article 13 of the directive. There is no sell-through period for existing stock or published pages.

The headline finding: generic claims are everywhere

The most striking result is how concentrated the problem is. Four out of five scanned sites use at least one generic environmental term without the substantiation the directive demands. These are not obscure edge cases — they are the everyday vocabulary of European marketing: eco-friendly, green, ecological, environmentally friendly, climate friendly, nature's friend.

What makes these claims problematic under EmpCo is not the words themselves but the absence of what must accompany them. Annex I point 4a prohibits "making a generic environmental claim for which the trader is not able to demonstrate recognised excellent environmental performance relevant to the claim." Recognised excellent environmental performance means an EU Ecolabel, an EU-recognised national or regional Type I ecolabel, or compliance with EMAS — not an internal assessment, and not a supplier's assurance. The practical consequence is that a product page saying "our eco-friendly packaging" without a certificate reference on that same page is, from 27 September, a prohibited commercial practice regardless of whether the packaging is genuinely better.

Compliance scores by sector

Aggregating each site's latest scan by declared sector produces the following picture. An important caveat on sample sizes: the "General / other" group contains 482 of the 524 sites and is therefore the only figure with a large sample. The named sectors below are based on between four and twelve sites each — they are indicative early signals, not settled industry benchmarks, and we publish the sample size alongside each so the reader can weigh them accordingly. Sectors below three sites are withheld entirely.

• Food & beverage — average 89/100 (4 sites, range 78–95). The strongest performer in the sample, plausibly because food labelling is already the most heavily regulated communication surface in the EU under Regulation 1169/2011, so teams are accustomed to substantiating claims.
• Industrial / B2B — average 81/100 (7 sites, range 49–95). Technical specification language leaves less room for vague environmental adjectives. Note that EmpCo is a consumer-protection instrument, so pure B2B communications sit outside its direct scope — but German competitors and associations can still act under the UWG, which is a live risk for this group.
• Textiles & fashion — average 70/100 (11 sites, range 19–100). The widest spread in the sample. Fashion is the sector with the most active enforcement record to date — the Dutch ACM action against H&M and Decathlon, the UK CMA undertakings from Boohoo and ASOS, and the Italian AGCM's €1 million fine against Shein.
• Cosmetics & personal care — average 62/100 (12 sites, range 11–100). Cosmetics carries a second layer of obligation: Regulation (EU) 655/2013 sets Common Criteria specifically governing claim wording, so "free from" and "natural" claims are constrained independently of EmpCo.
• Travel, tourism & hospitality — average 61/100 (8 sites, range 10–100). Terms like "eco-lodge", "sustainable safari" and "carbon-neutral flight" are structurally exposed. The Dutch ACM's 2023 action against KLM over flight-offsetting claims is the template here.
• General / other — average 57/100 (482 sites, range 10–100). The large-sample figure, and the one closest to a genuine platform-wide baseline.

The six most common violations, and what the Commission says about each

In February 2026 the European Commission's Directorate-General for Justice and Consumers published a FAQ document on the ECGT Directive, later updated with the Consumer Protection Cooperation Network's Common Understanding. It represents the preliminary views of Commission services rather than binding law, but it is the clearest available signal of how enforcers intend to read the directive. Each finding below is paired with the relevant guidance.

1. Generic environmental claims — 79% of sites

What triggers it: "eco", "green", "eco-friendly", "environmentally friendly", "ecological", "climate friendly" — used without accompanying recognised excellent environmental performance. Legal basis: Annex I point 4a. The fix is rarely deletion. A generic term becomes compliant when it is replaced by a specific, verifiable statement about a defined aspect: not "eco-friendly packaging" but "packaging made from 80% post-consumer recycled cardboard, FSC Recycled certified, certificate FSC-C123456".

2. Misleading visual presentation — 56% of sites

What triggers it: green colour fields, leaf and foliage motifs, natural-landscape photography, and badge-shaped graphics positioned so that the overall impression suggests an environmental benefit the text does not substantiate. Legal basis: Article 6(1)(b) UCPD — the overall presentation test. This is the finding most often disputed by marketing teams, and the one most often upheld by regulators: the Dutch ACM's decisions have repeatedly turned on visual impression rather than literal wording. If the imagery makes a promise the copy cannot support, the imagery is the claim.

3. Certification-style logos and trust marks — 28% of sites

What triggers it: badge or seal graphics that imply third-party verification without a scheme behind them, or that imitate the visual language of a recognised label. Legal basis: Annex I points 2 and 4, plus point 2a on sustainability labels. The directive inserted a definition of "certification scheme" into Article 2 UCPD precisely to draw this line: a scheme must be open under transparent conditions, monitored by a third party independent of both scheme owner and trader, and have a complaints mechanism. A badge your design team created does not qualify, however accurate the underlying practice may be.

4. Whole-product claims from partial benefits — 27% of sites

What triggers it: a claim presented as applying to the entire product, range or business when it concerns only one component or one stage. Legal basis: Annex I point 4b and Article 6(2). The canonical example is a bottle marketed as "100% recycled" when the body is rPET but the cap, label and sleeve are not. The compliant version scopes the claim explicitly: "bottle body made from 100% recycled PET (cap and label excluded)".

5. Offset-based neutrality claims — 19% of sites

What triggers it: "carbon neutral", "climate neutral", "CO₂ compensated", "net zero" where the claim rests on purchased offsets rather than actual reductions in the value chain. Legal basis: Annex I point 4c, which prohibits this outright — it is a per-se violation requiring no proof of consumer detriment. This is also the area with the most developed case law: the German Federal Court of Justice ruled in Katjes (I ZR 98/23, 27 June 2024) that a "klimaneutral" claim must be explained on the same advertising medium, not behind a link. Our dedicated guide covers twelve compliant alternatives to "carbon neutral".

6. Self-made sustainability labels — 13% of sites

What triggers it: a brand's own "conscious", "green choice" or "eco collection" designation applied as a label without an independent certification scheme. Legal basis: Annex I point 2a. H&M's Conscious Choice line is the clearest cautionary example: following the Dutch ACM's intervention the labelling was withdrawn and the twelve-year-old collection discontinued.

What to do with 63 days left

The data suggests most organisations are further behind than they believe, and the remediation path is longer than it looks — because obtaining a certification, commissioning an LCA, or reprinting packaging cannot be compressed into the final fortnight. A realistic sequence for the time remaining:

1. Weeks 1–2 — inventory. Catalogue every environmental claim visible to consumers: product pages, homepage, blog, email templates, packaging artwork, social profiles, press releases and ESG pages. Include imagery, not only text — visual presentation accounts for 56% of findings.
2. Weeks 3–4 — triage. Classify each claim: generic (4a), offset-based neutrality (4c), partial-presented-as-whole (4b), self-declared label (2a), or substantiated and defensible. Anything in the first four categories needs action.
3. Weeks 5–8 — remediate. Rewrite generic claims into specific quantified statements, or remove them. Where a certification exists, surface the certificate number on the same page as the claim. Where one does not and cannot be obtained in time, remove the claim rather than hoping it passes.
4. Weeks 9–10 — substantiation file. Assemble the evidence behind every claim you keep: certificates, LCA methodology, verification reports, data sources. Enforcers request documentation at first contact, and its absence shifts the burden onto you.
5. Final fortnight — verify and freeze. Re-scan, confirm no flagged claim survives, and check stock already in the distribution channel. There is no sell-through allowance: material visible to consumers on 27 September must comply, whenever it was produced.
6. Ongoing — re-check. Supplier feeds, plugin updates and new campaigns reintroduce banned terms after remediation. Schedule a recurring scan rather than treating this as a one-off project.

Why these numbers will keep moving

This dataset grows with every scan run through the platform, and we expect the aggregate picture to shift as the deadline approaches — both because remediation improves individual scores and because the mix of sites being scanned changes as more organisations begin auditing. The figures on this page are a snapshot taken on 26 July 2026. The continuously updated version, including sector breakdowns as sample sizes grow, is published at State of Green Claims 2026.

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