Vague and imprecise environmental claims become misleading commercial practices: so says the Empowering consumers for the green transition directive.
The sustainability claims made by products and companies are now widespread, but they are not always truthful. Quite the contrary. The European Commission has catalogued over 230 of them, finding that more than half contain vague, misleading or unfounded information, and 40 per cent provide no supporting evidence whatsoever. European institutions have sought to bring order to this landscape through a directive – known as Empowering consumers for the green transition – which, from 27 September 2026, will begin to take effect in Italy as well.
The directive 2024/825 "Empowering consumers for the green transition", definitively approved in January 2024, amends two pillars of European consumer protection legislation – the directive on unfair commercial practices and the one on consumer rights – introducing a series of prohibitions and obligations that are far more specific than those in place previously. On the commercial practices front, it expands the "black list" of practices that are always prohibited: these include the use of generic environmental claims such as "green" or "eco" when it is not possible to demonstrate overall environmental performance, the display of sustainability labels not based on certification schemes or not established by public authorities, and environmental claims referring to an entire product or company when they actually concern only one specific aspect.
The directive also requires that information be provided on the durability and repairability of products – for example, the existence of commercial guarantees exceeding two years, the minimum period for which software updates are guaranteed, the availability of spare parts and repair costs. The text also regulates comparisons between the environmental performance of products, requiring that they be truthful, based on verifiable data and clear, comparable criteria.
In its original ambitions, directive 2024/825 was to have been complemented by a second piece: the proposed directive on green claims, presented by the European Commission in March 2023. This second text was meant to define a prior verification mechanism for voluntary claims through which a company declares that a product, service or the organisation itself has a positive, neutral or reduced impact on the environment. However, after trilogue negotiations began in the summer of 2025, the dossier stalled and remains at an impasse.
Every European directive requires transposition measures at national level. In Italy, the legislative reference is Legislative Decree 30/2026 (also known as the "Empowering decree"), which entered into force on 24 March and is applicable from 27 September 2026. The text amends the Consumer Code, introducing greenwashing and socialwashing as forms of unfair commercial practice. Authorities and case law have already intervened in these areas, but the framework now becomes more stringent, making checks and challenges easier to pursue.
The Empowering decree first introduces several new definitions. An environmental claim is any message or representation that explicitly states – or even merely implies – that a product, category, brand, activity or trader has a positive or neutral impact on the environment, or that it is less harmful than others. This covers text, but also graphics or symbols. A claim is considered generic when it is not sufficiently substantiated or anchored to a sustainability label – that is, a voluntary mark that distinguishes a product, process or company on the basis of its environmental or social benefits.
The decree clarifies that sustainability information falls among the main characteristics of a product, on a par with price, quality, composition or manner of use. This means that declarations on these topics are assessed against the same standards of transparency and verifiability required for other essential information.
The decree also introduces two new categories into the so-called grey list of practices considered misleading unless proven otherwise: claims about future environmental performance – permitted only when backed by concrete commitments, a defined plan, measurable targets, precise deadlines and an independent verification system – and the communication of irrelevant benefits. For example, specifying that sheets of paper are "plastic-free" is considered misleading.
The black list of commercial practices deemed unfair in all circumstances also expands. The decree prohibits displaying a "sustainability label" not based on a certification scheme or not established by public authorities, making generic environmental claims without being able to substantiate them, and implying that an environmental claim refers to the company or product as a whole when it actually concerns only one specific aspect. Companies will also no longer be permitted to speak of a "neutral, reduced or positive environmental impact" on the basis of greenhouse gas emissions offsetting. Nor may they present as an added value a characteristic that is in fact required by law – for example, specifying that a household appliance "complies with European safety regulations".
If a website, app or marketplace compares the sustainability of several products, services or companies, it must clarify the method it uses, which products and suppliers it includes and on what criteria, and how it updates its data over time. On the subject of durability and obsolescence, the legislation prohibits a range of practices that may mislead consumers about the actual useful life of a product or the correct way to use it – for example, omitting relevant information, such as the fact that an update may worsen software performance, and pushing for the early replacement of components or consumable materials when it is not technically necessary.