Goodbye Green Claims Directive: Where does that leave the law on environmental claims?

On 20 June 2025, the European Commission announced the withdrawal of its proposal for a Green Claims Directive (GCD), which had been set for finalisation on 23 June 2025. The GCD aimed to introduce stringent rules for assessing, substantiating, and communicating explicit environmental claims, along with curtailing the proliferation of new sustainability labels. Its abandonment, however,  would not mean the end of heightened scrutiny of environmental or sustainability claims in Europe; businesses still need to be aware of the application of the current rules on ‘misleading commercial practices’ to environmental claims, which will be supplemented next year by the specific rules in the Green Transition Directive.

What was the proposed Green Claims Directive?

Initially proposed by the European Commission in March 2023, the GCD proposed stringent rules for the assessment, substantiation and communication of ‘explicit environmental claims’. The GCD was intended to impose more specific rules to supplement the changes to the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive (UCPD) under the Green Transition Directive (discussed below).

The GCD also set out rules designed to stop the proliferation of sustainability labels, so that new labels could only be created if they followed an approval at member state level.

Has the GCD been abandoned completely?

Unlike other EU ESG laws which have been modified with the aim of reducing the sustainability reporting burden on EU companies as part of the Omnibus package,[1]  it initially seemed that the GCD was withdrawn in its entirety, following indications from the European People’s Party MPs that they would not support the proposal, making it extremely unlikely that the measure would pass through the European Parliament.  However, subsequent reports have indicated that there's still a possibility that the Commission would not withdraw the proposal.

So where does this leave the law on green claims?

While the axing of the GCD would mean that the more stringent specifications for “explicit environmental claims” would not be introduced, this does not mean that it’s a ‘free for all’ on environmental, green or sustainability claims.

In terms of existing laws, it has been expressly acknowledged that inaccurate environmental claims may be ‘misleading commercial practices’ under the UCPD, which is implemented in Ireland by the Consumer Protection Act 2007 (as amended).[2]

In addition, the Directive on empowering consumers for the green transition (the Green Transition Directive) will introduce a number of specific new prohibited and misleading commercial practices provisions:

These new provisions include:

Misleading Commercial Practices

• Inclusion of environmental, social, and circularity (durability, reparability, recyclability) characteristics as main product features subject to misleading practice assessment.
• Prohibition of future-oriented environmental claims (e.g., carbon neutrality by a certain date) unless supported by a detailed, verifiable, and independently monitored implementation plan.
• Ban on advertising irrelevant consumer benefits that could mislead (e.g., “gluten-free” water).

Prohibited Commercial Practices

• Making generic environmental claims (e.g., “eco-friendly”) without “recognised excellent environmental performance” (as defined in the Green Transition Directive).
• Making environmental claims about an entire product or business when the claim only concerns a specific aspect or activity.
• Claiming a product has a neutral, reduced, or positive environmental impact based on greenhouse gas offsetting.
• Presenting a good as repairable when it is not.
• Withholding or misrepresenting information about the impact of using non-original consumables, spare parts, or accessories.

Businesses should note that this directive must be transposed by 27 September 2026, and the Irish Department of Enterprise Trade and Employment has indicated its intent to meet that deadline.

Finally, businesses also need to be aware of the rules on environmental claims under the Irish Advertising Standards Authority’s Code of Conduct for Marketing Communications in Ireland.[3]

Conclusion

The withdrawal of the Green Claims Directive would relieve businesses of the potentially very burdensome substantiation requirements and regulatory risk associated with such claims.  If these laws are  introduced, there is at least some risk that the high threshold for substantiation could have had the perverse effect of disincentivising businesses from communicating their environmental achievements to consumers or, worse again, from taking steps towards ‘sustainability’ in the first place.

That being said, environmental claims will no doubt continue to be an area of focus by regulators and consumers alike (and carry potential class actions risk under the Irish Representative Actions Act 2023 which implements the Collective Redress Directive). Against that backdrop, businesses should continue to assess whether their advertising campaigns, website content, packaging and other consumer-facing communications satisfy the high threshold for substantiating such claims, particularly the use of generic environmental terms and imagery which dominate these forms of communications.

If you have any queries in relation to how the current or forthcoming laws affect your businesses, please contact Denise Daly Byrne, Partner, Katie O'Connor,  Partner or Mairead O’Brien, Senior Associate, or your usual A&L Goodbody Disputes team contact. 

Date published: 25 June 2025

[1] For more detail, see here.

[2] See for example the European Commission’s Guidance on the UCPD (see section 4.1) and  Zalando’s commitments on the use of sustainability flags and icons from its website.

[3] For more information see here.