March 2024

On 6 March 2024, the EU published the first directive to combat greenwashing, which was adopted by the EU legislation institutions in February 2024, namely the “Directive amending Directives 2005/29/EC and 2011/83/EU as regards empowering consumers for the green transition through better protection against unfair practices and better information (“Empowering Consumers Directive“). The published Empowering Consumers Directive is available here.

The Empowering Consumer Directive provides for adaptations to Directive 2005/29/EC concerning unfair business-to-consumer commercial practices in the internal market (“Unfair Commercial Practices Directive”) on the one hand, and Directive 2011/83/EU on consumer rights. (“Consumer Rights Directive”).

Among other things, the adaptions cover significantly stricter regulations for the admissibility of environmental claims in advertising. For example, there will be new specific per se bans on the use of sustainability labels, (generic) environmental claims and claims based on greenhouse gas emissions offsetting. In addition, concrete requirements for the use of environmental claims related to future environmental performance will be established for the first time. For providers of sustainability labels, the definition of “certification scheme” contained in the directive is also of particular importance, as they must ensure compliance with the requirements until the new regulations come into force in order to be able to continue to offer their sustainability labels on the European market. The use of self-created sustainability labels will no longer be permitted in future. 

The amendments to the Consumer Rights Directive also provide for increased information requirements for consumers regarding legal guarantees of conformity and commercial guarantees of durability of more than two years for goods (including goods with digital elements) as well as digital content and digital services. New information requirements are also included on the reparability of goods. These requirements are complemented by further new per se prohibitions in the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive, such as on specific unfair commercial practices in connection with claims regarding software updates, goods containing a feature introduced to limit its durability as well as durability and repairability.

The new directive has to be implemented into national law by the Member States until 27 March 2026 and will become binding on 27 September 2026.