New EU green claims rules: is your business ready?

Businesses operating across the UK and EU face an increasingly complex and robust landscape when it comes to environmental and sustainability claims.

The latest development comes on 27 September 2026, when the EU's Empowering Consumers for the Green Transition Directive takes effect. The Directive is designed to further tackle misleading environmental claims and increase transparency for consumers, introducing for example new specific requirements around generic claims, and how businesses can and cannot use sustainability labels. To further complicate matters, however, EU member states can to some extent choose how to implement and enforce the new Directive domestically, meaning a variety of approaches to enforcement across Europe is inevitable.

Regulators across both the UK and EU have significant enforcement powers at their disposal including, in some jurisdictions, fines that can reach up to 10% of a company's turnover. Recent activity, guidance and messaging from authorities in the UK and parts of Europe demonstrates that there is a clear appetite to investigate and challenge businesses making claims that break 'greenwashing' rules.

For businesses, the message is clear: environmental claims are now attracting significant regulatory attention, and that attention may carry with it substantial consequences.

"Regulators' enforcement powers are significant and they are clearly keen to flex those muscles," says WBD regulatory expert Ashley Borthwick. "It is a matter of when not if for headline-grabbing fines in this space. Businesses also need to be alive to the fact that any enforcement action relating to green claims will inevitably bring with it the potential for serious reputational damage."

Organisations should consider:

• Does the business understand the new EU requirements and has the impact been assessed?
• Can we substantiate all environmental and sustainability claims with up to date robust evidence?
• Do we use any sustainability labels and if so are they compliant?
• Do our marketing materials talk about our environmental credentials in an honest, transparent and compliant way?
• Do our internal approval processes adequately manage green claims risk?

As scrutiny continues to increase, businesses should review their existing claims and governance processes to ensure they remain compliant in this fast-evolving regulatory environment.

To explore the latest UK and EU developments in more detail, join lawyers from Womble Bond Dickinson and Redeker Sellner Dahs on 7 October for our webinar, Green claims under scrutiny: what businesses operating in the UK and EU need to know. Sign up here.