Guide
How to read your report
Six steps, in the order we would do them. About fifteen minutes for your first report, and much less after that.
Before anything else: a low score is not a verdict on your company
The average across the 906 European sites we have scanned is 57 out of 100. Nearly half score below 50. If your score looks alarming, you are in ordinary company.
Scores are deliberately strict. Under the Directive, a general environmental claim without specific proof is a finding regardless of how sound the practice behind it is. A company with a genuinely excellent environmental record will still score badly if its website says “sustainable” without saying how.
Read the score as the size of the writing job ahead of you, not as a judgement of what you do.
Start with Priority fixes
Not the score, and not the findings list. Near the top of the report there is a panel headed Which few changes clear the most findings?
It groups findings by the rule behind them and orders them by how many each single fix resolves. Most sites break the same rule over and over, so a handful of wording changes usually clears the majority of the report. On one recent audit, four changes cleared 79 of 92 findings.
If you only do one thing: send this panel to whoever writes your website copy. It is the work list.
Learn the three colours
Every finding carries one of three severities, and they mean different things.
Red— Prohibited as written
The claim falls under a practice the Directive bans outright. It has to be reworded or removed — evidence will not save it.
Yellow— Needs evidence on file
The claim may be perfectly true, but nothing on the page proves it. Either add the proof, attach a certificate, or reword it to something you can stand behind.
Green— Informational
Worth knowing about, not a problem. Often a claim that is fine as it stands but sits close to a line.
Fix red first. Yellow is usually a documentation task rather than a rewrite.
Read one finding properly
Open any finding and you get four things. Once you have read one, the rest are quick.
- The exact wording we found, quoted from your page, with the address it appeared on. Findings from an image are marked VISUAL — a badge or a pack shot carries the same legal weight as a sentence, but usually costs far more to change.
- Analysis — which provision it falls under and why it was flagged.
- Why this severity — the reasoning for red, yellow or green, so you can disagree with it on the substance.
- A suggested rewrite that keeps the marketing intent and removes the exposure. Copy suggestion puts it on your clipboard. Treat it as a starting point, not a legal opinion. Findings from an image usually have no rewrite — there is no sentence to change, so the finding tells you which element is the problem instead.
See five real findings, with their rewrites →
Taken from real scans and anonymised — no company, product or site is identifiable.
RedGeneric claim, no substantiation·German
ökologisch angebautem Löwenzahn
Why: In the EU, “ökologisch” and “eko” are legally reserved for products certified organic under Regulation 2018/848. Used loosely, the word is not vague — it is a claim you are not entitled to make.
Suggested rewrite
Bio-Löwenzahn (zertifiziert nach EU-Öko-Verordnung 2018/848, Kontrollstelle: DE-ÖKO-XXX)
RedClimate-neutrality claim·German
Unser Weg zur Klimaneutralität
Why: A neutrality claim resting on offsetting is prohibited outright, not merely unproven. The fix is to lead with the reduction you can evidence and treat offsetting as a footnote, if at all.
Suggested rewrite
Emissionsreduktion zuerst: Bis 2030 senken wir unsere Scope-1- und Scope-2-Emissionen um [X %] gegenüber [Basisjahr], geprüfte Ausgangsbasis.
RedRecyclability / disposal claim·German
100% biologisch abbaubar, kompostierfähig
Why: “Compostable” has to say where. Industrial composting and a garden heap are different claims, and the limitation belongs on the same medium as the claim — not on a separate page.
Suggested rewrite
Biologisch abbaubar gemäß DIN EN 13432 (industrielle Kompostierung). Nicht für die Heimkompostierung geeignet.
YellowGeneric claim, no substantiation·Italian
È un modello che integra i principi di sostenibilità nei processi e nelle attività.
Why: Yellow rather than red: there is nothing untrue here, but nothing measurable either. Naming one target with a number moves it out of scope.
Suggested rewrite
È un modello che integra obiettivi di sostenibilità misurabili — ad esempio riduzione delle emissioni Scope 1+2 del [X %] entro il [anno], con rendicontazione secondo [standard].
YellowMisleading visual·Visual
The entire footer section is coloured in a vibrant green.
Why: Colour makes an environmental suggestion the text never supports. Findings from an image get no rewrite — there is no sentence to change, so the finding names the element instead and the fix is a design decision.
No rewrite — this one is a design change rather than a wording change.
Defend the claims you can prove
If a claim is backed by a real certification, you do not need to change the wording — you need the evidence on file.
In the Certificates section of the report, use Add certificate to upload the document, then link it to the finding. The finding is then marked Justified with your evidence attached, which is exactly what you would want to produce if a regulator ever asked.
On Complete, some certification findings also offer Deep Verify, which checks a scheme we did not recognise against live sources. It is newer than the rest of the report — if you try it and the answer looks wrong, we would genuinely like to hear.
Mark things off as you fix them
Each finding has Mark as fixed and Dismiss. Use them as you work — they are what turn the report from a document into a to-do list.
Your site score updates as you go, so the dashboard shows where you stand today rather than where you started. Use Dismiss when a finding does not apply to you, and say why: that note is your record of the decision.
Re-scan, and keep the comparison
Once the changes are live, scan again — and scan the same pages. On the report, use Compare with a previous scan.
You get four numbers: what was fixed, what is still there, what is new, and what could not be compared. That last one matters: if a page was only read by one of the two scans, we will not claim it was fixed. We would rather tell you we do not know.
The comparison can be shared as a link that needs no login, or downloaded as a PDF. It is the document worth keeping for your records.
What the score means
The score weighs how many findings there are and how severe they are. It is not a probability of being fined — it is a consistent way to compare one scan against the next.
Questions people ask
Does a scan read my whole website?
No. A deep scan reads 20 pages, a Pro scan 10, a Standard scan 5. That is deliberate: environmental claims cluster on a predictable set of pages — sustainability, about, product and campaign pages — while the rest of a site carries none. You choose which pages, either from your own site map or by pasting addresses, so the budget goes where the risk is.
Why is the same finding repeated across so many pages?
Because the same sentence is on all of them. That is good news rather than bad: it means one wording change clears many findings at once, which is exactly what Priority fixes is showing you.
The scanner flagged a certification we genuinely hold.
A yellow finding on a label is not an accusation that it is fake. It means nothing on the page proves the label's basis. Upload the certificate and link it to the finding — that answers it permanently.
Can I send the report to someone without an account?
Yes. Every report can be shared as a read-only link that needs no login, or downloaded as a PDF. You can switch the link off at any time and it stops working immediately.
We sell in several countries. Which rules apply?
The EU Directive always applies. Adding a market applies that country's regulator and any stricter national rules on top. If you select more than one country the strictest interpretation wins, which is the right answer commercially: you have to satisfy the strictest market anyway.
Still not sure what to do first?
Send us the report and we will mark up the three findings we would start with. No charge, and no obligation.