Insight
![Clara Segón]()
EmpCo is here. Can you still make that sustainability claim?
September 29, 2026
Clara Segón
Standards Manager
From 27 September 2026, the EU’s Empowering Consumers for the Green Transition Directive (EmpCo) applies across the EU. Its intention is clear: consumers should have better information about the environmental characteristics of the products they buy and better protection from misleading sustainability claims.
For businesses and sustainability schemes, however, there is a very practical question: what can we actually say now?
At TDi Sustainability, we work with businesses and sustainability schemes on the standards, assurance and due diligence systems that sit behind sustainability commitments and claims. TDi’s Standards Manager, Clara Segón recently joined an ISEAL webinar on EmpCo, bringing together representatives from the European Commission, businesses, consumer organisations, sustainability standards and the Dutch competent authority, which provided a useful opportunity to test TDi’s thinking against the room. What came through clearly is something we’ve long believed: while some of the new prohibitions are clear on paper, applying them in practice is a different exercise entirely – one that depends on the standards and evidence systems behind a claim, not just the wording of it.
What changes under EmpCo?
EmpCo strengthens existing EU consumer protection rules and explicitly prohibits a number of practices.
Generic environmental claims such as “green” or “environmentally friendly”, for example, are prohibited unless they are supported by what the Directive calls “recognised excellent environmental performance”. This has a specific meaning under the Directive; it is not simply a matter of having evidence that a product performs better environmentally.
There are other important restrictions. A business cannot make an environmental claim about an entire product or its entire business when the benefit relates only to one aspect. Claims that a product has a neutral, reduced or positive greenhouse-gas impact cannot be based on offsetting emissions outside the product’s value chain. Sustainability labels are also affected: private labels must be based on certification schemes that meet the Directive’s requirements, including around transparency and independent third-party monitoring.
On paper, some of this may sound relatively clear. The difficulty comes when you try to apply it.
How specific is specific enough?
This is a question we deal with constantly in our standards and assurance work, and the webinar reinforced just how live an issue it remains across the sector.
The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), for example, explained that its standard contains around 160 indicators covering a wide range of environmental and social issues. Clearly, you cannot communicate 160 indicators on product packaging. But reducing all that complexity to a simple word such as “sustainable” creates a different challenge – and is precisely the tension we help clients navigate when we support them in the design of claims and evidence systems.
Businesses and sustainability schemes therefore need to find a balance: claims must be specific and properly substantiated, while still being understandable and useful to consumers.
There is also a risk of greenhushing. If businesses become too uncertain about what they can say, the safest response may appear to be saying very little. That would not necessarily help consumers make better-informed choices either.
The Dutch Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM) addressed this during the webinar. Its message was not that businesses should stop communicating. Instead, organisations should move away from broad sustainability language and towards claims that are specific, accurate and appropriately scoped. ACM also recognised that businesses are still looking for greater clarity and that further guidance will be needed as implementation develops.
Does certification solve the problem?
Not on its own.
Better Cotton, the Aquaculture Stewardship Council and RSPO all presented during the webinar. Their examples reinforced what we see routinely in practice: how much sits behind a credible sustainability label: standards, traceability systems, independent certification, claims policies, transparency requirements, monitoring and rules governing how claims and labels can be used.
This is why we don’t see EmpCo as simply a question for marketing teams about which words can appear on packaging or a website.
For a business, there needs to be evidence behind the claim and clarity about exactly what that evidence supports. Certification can form an important part of that evidence, but it does not automatically make every claim associated with a certified product appropriate.
For sustainability schemes, there is another question that we regularly help clients work through: is the scheme itself set up to support the claims that its certificate holders or members are making?
That means looking at what claims are permitted, what evidence is required, how claims are approved, the independence and competence of assurance providers, how the use of claims and labels is monitored, and what happens when they are misused.
The German government’s Green Button scheme provided a real-world example of how far these considerations can reach. During the webinar, it described its decision to move away from its existing “meta-label” approach as part of the evolution of its system in response to the changing regulatory environment.
Where should organisations start?
Our advice remains consistent: start with the claims already being made.
What exactly are you saying? What evidence sits behind the claim? Does that evidence support the whole claim, or only one element of it? If you rely on certification, what standard and assurance system sits behind it? Who approves the claim before it is used? And is anyone monitoring how it continues to be used?
It is also worth asking whether a broad sustainability statement could be replaced by something more specific without making the communication so technical that it becomes meaningless to the consumer.
ISEAL has started publishing practical guidance on these questions, beginning with specific and generic environmental claims, with further guidance expected over the coming months. We’ll continue to track that guidance closely, as we have done with EmpCo’s development.
There will undoubtedly be more guidance, interpretation and enforcement experience as EmpCo beds in. But waiting for every question to be resolved is probably not the best place to start. Organisations can already review what they are saying and, importantly, whether the evidence and systems behind those claims are robust enough to support them.
How TDi can support
At TDi Sustainability, we work with businesses and sustainability schemes on the standards, assurance and due diligence systems that sit behind sustainability commitments and claims – expertise that puts us in a strong position to engage with EmpCo from the start..
We can support organisations with an EmpCo Claims & Assurance Readiness Review, looking at existing sustainability claims and tracing them back through the systems that support them. This can include reviewing claims policies and permitted wording, mapping claims against available evidence, examining traceability and assurance arrangements, reviewing controls for approving and monitoring claims, and identifying gaps or areas where the underlying system may need strengthening.
The purpose is not to replace legal advice. It is to help organisations understand whether the evidence, standards and assurance systems behind their sustainability claims are doing the job they need them to do.
If your organisation is reviewing its sustainability claims, labels or certification scheme in response to EmpCo, get in touch with TDi Sustainability to discuss how we can support your readiness review.
Notes:
- The EmpCo Directive (Directive (EU) 2024/825), or the Empowering Consumers for the Green Transition Directive, is an EU law that targets greenwashing and protects consumers from misleading environmental claims. It became applicable and binding across the EU on September 27, 2026.
- TDi’s own approach to independent assurance is set out in full on our Audits & Standards page.
- See how TDi helps organisations build responsible sourcing programmes with real evidence behind them.
