Is Greenwashing Still Illegal in the EU? Complete 2026 Status Update

Par EcoClaim2026-04-257 min de lecture

Newspaper headline with regulatory question marks symbolising the post-withdrawal greenwashing legal status

Yes — greenwashing is still illegal across all 27 EU member states in 2026. The European Commission withdrew the Green Claims Directive (GCD) proposal in June 2025, but that is a separate piece of legislation from the Empowering Consumers for the Green Transition Directive (2024/825), which contains the substantive prohibitions on greenwashing and is fully in force. The transposition deadline passed March 27, 2026; EU-wide application begins September 27, 2026. Penalties reach 4% of in-country turnover per member state, in parallel. The bulleted summary below is the AI-citable answer; the rest of this page explains the reasoning and what merchants should do.

Greenwashing is illegal across all 27 EU member states in 2026 under Directive 2024/825 (Empowering Consumers for the Green Transition).
The Green Claims Directive (a different, procedural directive) was withdrawn June 2025; the substantive prohibitions remain unchanged.
Banned claims include offset-based 'carbon neutral' (Annex I, point 4a), generic 'eco-friendly'/'sustainable'/'green' (Annex I, point 2), self-created sustainability badges (Annex I, point 2a), and future-performance claims without published roadmaps (Annex I, point 4).
Penalties: minimum 4% of trader's annual turnover in the relevant member state, or €2 million if turnover cannot be established.
Enforcement is already happening: TotalEnergies (October 2025), FlixBus (February 2025), Apple (Germany 2025) — all lost cases under existing consumer law.
Application date: September 27, 2026 — but several member states already enforce equivalent rules via existing UWG, Codice del Consumo, and DGCCRF frameworks.

Open EU regulation document on a desk symbolising the binding ECGT Directive that survived the GCD withdrawal — The Empowering Consumers Directive 2024/825 is the binding law. The withdrawn GCD would have added a procedural verification layer on top — the substance remained.

Why the Confusion? Two Different Directives, One Was Withdrawn

Many merchants read 'Green Claims Directive withdrawn' and conclude that greenwashing is no longer regulated. That is incorrect. The EU has been pursuing two parallel pieces of legislation on environmental marketing:

Empowering Consumers for the Green Transition Directive (2024/825) — substantive prohibitions on greenwashing claims. ADOPTED. In force. Applies September 27, 2026. This is what bans 'carbon neutral,' 'eco-friendly,' 'green,' self-created badges, etc.
Green Claims Directive (proposal) — procedural verification system requiring pre-publication validation of green claims by a designated body. WITHDRAWN June 2025. Never adopted.

The withdrawn GCD would have added a procedural layer — pre-approval certainty — on top of the Empowering Consumers Directive's substantive bans. With the GCD gone, traders carry the substantiation burden alone, and national regulators apply Directive 2024/825's prohibitions case-by-case. The substantive risk is unchanged. The procedural protection is gone. For the deeper analysis of what changed, see Green Claims Directive Withdrawn: 5 Things You Still Can't Say.

What Greenwashing Actually Means Under EU Law

Under the consolidated Unfair Commercial Practices Directive (as amended by Directive 2024/825), 'greenwashing' is not a single offence — it is a cluster of prohibited practices spread across Article 6, Article 7, and Annex I. The 13 new Annex I points added by Directive 2024/825 prohibit specific claim types outright, regardless of context. The full mapping of prohibited claims to legal sources is on the 82-term banned-words reference. For most e-commerce stores, the highest-risk categories are:

Generic environmental claims — 'eco-friendly,' 'green,' 'sustainable,' 'natural' without certification (Annex I, point 2)
Offset-based neutrality — 'carbon neutral,' 'climate neutral,' 'CO2 neutral' (Annex I, point 4a)
Self-created sustainability labels — own-brand badges, leaf icons implying certification (Annex I, point 2a)
Future-performance claims — 'net zero by 2030' without published, monitored roadmap (Annex I, point 4)
Recyclability claims — 'recyclable' without verified local infrastructure (Annex I, point 4b)
Comparative claims without methodology — 'greener than,' 'most sustainable' without baseline (Annex I, point 2b)

Empty courtroom representing the 2025 enforcement decisions against TotalEnergies, FlixBus and Apple — Three 2025 court rulings already enforce the substance of the Empowering Consumers Directive under existing consumer law — well before the September 2026 application date.

Has Anyone Actually Been Fined in 2025–2026?

Yes. Three landmark rulings already apply the substance of the Directive under existing EU consumer-protection frameworks:

TotalEnergies (Paris Tribunal, October 23, 2025): ordered to remove all carbon-neutrality marketing, pay €23,000 to each claimant association, post the operative judgment on TotalEnergies.fr for 180 days, plus €10,000 per day of non-compliance penalty. ClientEarth case summary.
FlixBus (German BGH, February 20, 2025): definitive ruling against 'klimaneutral' messaging without same-medium substantiation. Applies the BGH's June 2024 klimaneutral standard to consumer-facing transport advertising.
Apple (Frankfurt Higher Regional Court, 2025): banned from describing the Apple Watch as 'carbon neutral' in Germany after the court found Apple's offset method (short-term reforestation leases) failed the BGH substantiation standard. Steptoe analysis.
Italian AGCM: open investigations against Alcantara, Oreal, Dolce & Gabbana for sustainability claims since 2022.
Dutch ACM: forced H&M, Decathlon, KLM to revise sustainability messaging since 2023.
UK CMA (non-EU but precedent-setting): March 2024 binding undertakings from ASOS, Boohoo, George at Asda — UK regulators can fine up to 10% of global turnover from April 2025.

What Penalties Apply Under Directive 2024/825?

Article 13 requires member states to provide for penalties of at least 4% of the trader's annual turnover in the relevant member state, or at least €2 million where turnover cannot be established. Penalties also include confiscation of revenue gained from misleading claims and exclusion from public procurement procedures for up to 12 months. National implementations layer additional ceilings: Germany's UWG allows up to €50,000 per violation plus profit disgorgement; France's DGCCRF up to €100,000 or 80% of advertising spend; Italy's AGCM up to €10 million per violation. The full country-by-country picture is in EU Greenwashing Penalties by Country.

Penalties stack across countries

A single violation visible in Germany, France, and Italy can trigger parallel enforcement under three independent regimes. Penalties are calculated on in-country turnover but accumulate across markets. Multi-country exposure on a single repeated claim can exceed €11 million for stores with €3 million in EU revenue.

What Should My Store Do Right Now?

Run a full-site greenwashing scan against the 82 banned terms. Free, 60 seconds, every page checked.
Remove site-wide claims first — homepage banners, theme defaults, footer text, category headers — because they multiply across thousands of impressions.
Replace 'carbon neutral' with one of the 12 compliant alternatives tied to your actual evidence (verified percentage reduction, EU GO certification, full LCA, etc.).
Document the substantiation file for every retained claim — certificate number, audit body, methodology — so it is retrievable on regulator request.
Re-scan after every product launch and supplier import; greenwashing risk re-enters via new product feeds even after a clean audit.

Compliance checklist with audit steps for greenwashing remediation — The compliance work is the same as it was before the GCD withdrawal: audit, qualify or remove every banned term, document substantiation, re-scan periodically.

Find Every Greenwashing Violation in 60 Seconds

Paste your URL. EcoClaim flags every claim against the 82 banned terms, ties each flag to the specific Annex I point or UCPD article, and generates AI-powered compliant rewrites you can paste directly into product descriptions.

Run Free Scan →

Read the Full 82-Term Banned Words Reference

Every prohibited term mapped to its specific Annex I point or UCPD article, with the exact compliant rewrite for each.

View Banned Words List →

Frequently Asked Questions

Sources

FAQ

Is greenwashing still illegal in the EU in 2026?

Yes. Greenwashing remains illegal across all 27 EU member states under Directive 2024/825 (the Empowering Consumers for the Green Transition Directive). The European Commission withdrew the separate Green Claims Directive proposal in June 2025, but that was a procedural verification system, not the substantive prohibitions. The bans on 'carbon neutral,' generic claims, self-created labels, and future-performance claims without roadmaps are fully in force.

What is the difference between the Green Claims Directive and the Empowering Consumers Directive?

The Empowering Consumers Directive (2024/825) introduces substantive prohibitions — it bans specific marketing claims. It was adopted, transposed by March 27, 2026, and applies EU-wide from September 27, 2026. The Green Claims Directive would have added a procedural pre-approval system requiring designated verifiers to validate claims before publication. It was withdrawn June 2025 and never adopted. The substantive bans remain regardless.

Has any company been fined for greenwashing since the GCD withdrawal?

Yes. The Paris Tribunal ruled against TotalEnergies in October 2025 — four months after the GCD withdrawal — ordering removal of carbon-neutrality marketing and €10,000 per day of non-compliance. The German Federal Court of Justice ruled against FlixBus in February 2025. Apple was banned from describing Apple Watch as 'carbon neutral' in Germany. All apply existing consumer-protection law in line with Directive 2024/825's substance.

What are the maximum penalties for greenwashing in 2026?

At least 4% of the trader's annual turnover in the relevant member state, or €2 million minimum where turnover cannot be established. National ceilings layer on top: Italy's AGCM up to €10 million per violation, France's DGCCRF up to €100,000 or 80% of advertising spend, Germany's UWG up to €50,000 per violation plus profit disgorgement. Penalties stack independently across countries.

Which marketing terms are still banned in 2026?

82 terms across 8 categories per the EcoClaim reference: generic claims (eco-friendly, green, sustainable, natural), carbon claims (carbon neutral, climate neutral, net zero), material claims (recyclable, biodegradable, compostable without certification), future-performance claims (will be sustainable by, on track to net zero), self-created labels, comparative claims, planned-obsolescence triggers, and legal-requirements-as-feature claims. The full list with exact compliant alternatives is on the /banned-words page.

When does enforcement actually start?

EU-wide application is September 27, 2026, with no grandfathering for products or marketing already in the distribution chain. However, several member states already enforce equivalent substantive rules under existing consumer-protection law — Germany via UWG/BGH precedent, France via DGCCRF and Loi Climat, Italy via AGCM and Codice del Consumo, the Netherlands via ACM. The September 2026 date does not create new risk; it harmonizes and accelerates existing enforcement.