EmpCo is here. Can you still make that sustainability claim?

For businesses and sustainability schemes, however, there is a very practical question: what can we actually say now?

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.

This was one of the points Clara found most interesting during the webinar.

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.

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.

Not on its own.

Better Cotton, the Aquaculture Stewardship Council and RSPO all presented during the webinar. Their examples showed how much can sit behind a 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 Clara doesn’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: 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 an interesting 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.

Clara’s suggestion is to 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.

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.

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.

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.