EmpCo Directive 2026: These Environmental Claims Will Be Banned from September 27
From September 27, 2026, new rules will apply in Germany for environmental claims in communication with consumers. They are based on EU Directive 2024/825, known in German competition law as EmpCo. It sets out the conditions under which terms like "climate neutral" or "sustainable" may still be used. Anyone who doesn't meet these conditions risks a cease-and-desist warning. This article explains the legal basis, the key rules, and what a review of your own website means in practice.
What is EmpCo? Fines of up to 4% of annual revenue from September 27, 2026?
EmpCo stands for "Empowering Consumers for the Green Transition," EU Directive 2024/825. It has been transposed into national law by the member states, in Germany through an amendment to the Act Against Unfair Competition (UWG). The new rules take effect with no transition period: by the deadline, existing websites, brochures, catalogs, and campaigns must already be compliant. There is no grace period for existing content.
The overview below shows which areas are affected and where the legal basis applies in each case.
| Area | Rule |
|---|---|
| Channels covered | Website, product pages, packaging, social media, catalogs, press releases with consumer relevance, signage, verbal statements in sales conversations |
| Forms covered | Medium-neutral: text, image, color, or symbol all count equally as an environmental claim |
| Not covered | Purely B2B communication and mandatory sustainability reporting to investors |
| B2B exception in practice | Falls within scope as soon as it is publicly accessible, for example on a website, in a LinkedIn post, or in a trade article |
| Deadline | September 27, 2026, with no transition period and no exception for older publications |
Who is affected?
In principle, every company that communicates with consumers is affected, regardless of company size. The most common misconception is: "We're B2B, this doesn't apply to us." In practice, that is almost never true. As soon as B2B communication is publicly accessible or can be passed on to consumers by business partners, it falls within scope. That covers practically every corporate website, every social media presence, and every press release.
Not covered is purely internal or investor-facing sustainability reporting, along with communication that genuinely has no consumer touchpoint at all. In practice, this exception is very narrow.
The five rules in detail
EmpCo does not ban every environmental claim. It bans unsubstantiated, blanket, or misleading ones. The following five points are where companies most commonly run afoul of the new rules in practice.
1. Blanket environmental terms without specification
Terms like "sustainable," "climate-friendly," or "energy-efficient" are not banned outright, but they're only permitted if they are specified within the same medium: exactly what does the claim rest on, and over what time period or benchmark? Alternatively, the claim is permitted if it's based on a recognized environmental performance standard, such as the EU Ecolabel. Without specification or recognized proof, the claim counts as blanket, and therefore misleading.
2. Neutrality claims based on offsetting
Claims like "climate neutral," "CO2 neutral," or "climate-friendly" are prohibited as soon as they rest on offsetting measures (such as certificates or reforestation projects) rather than on actual emission reductions within the company's own operations. This is one of the directive's clearest prohibitions: existing proof of offsetting does not cure the claim, because the ban targets the offsetting logic itself, not a lack of documentation.
3. A partial aspect must not read as the whole product
A claim that relates to only one component of a product, for example a single recycled building material, must not be communicated in a way that leads consumers to believe the entire product is affected. This rule particularly concerns product pages and packaging copy where a single green feature is prominently highlighted while the rest of the product remains unchanged.
4. Seals need a recognized certification system
Environmental seals and certificates are only permitted if they are either set by a government authority or based on a system with independent monitoring. Self-created, company-owned labels without an external verification body are not permitted under the new rules, regardless of how solid the underlying criteria actually are.
5. A legal obligation is not an advertising advantage
Whatever a company must fulfil by law anyway may not be advertised as a special advantage. This applies, for example, to packaging requirements or emission limits that apply to the entire industry. If such an obligation is presented as an individual selling point, that is not permitted under EmpCo, because it creates an impression of distinctiveness for the consumer that does not actually exist.
What happens in case of violations?
Violations of the new UWG rules are treated under competition law the same way as other misleading advertising, but they can become considerably more expensive than classic competition violations. In practice, several layers of consequences are possible:
- Cease-and-desist warnings from competitors or associations: competition-law warnings are an established and frequently used instrument in Germany. Companies with unclear environmental claims are an obvious target, because the violation can often be demonstrated directly on the website.
- Injunction and removal claims: once a violation is established, the affected claim must be removed or corrected, usually combined with warning costs and the obligation to sign a cease-and-desist declaration with a contractual penalty clause.
- Contractual penalties on repeat violations: if the same obligation is violated again after a cease-and-desist declaration has been signed, contractual penalties become due, in practice usually in the range of several thousand euros per individual case.
Fines under Section 19 UWG (new version): the EmpCo directive itself does not set fixed fine amounts, but the new version of the German UWG does. For serious, cross-border violations prosecuted through the so-called CPC mechanism (affecting at least three EU member states), fines of up to 4% of annual revenue can be imposed. This applies to companies with annual revenue above €1.25 million; what counts is the revenue in the member states affected by the violation. For violations that are purely national in relevance, the fine amount is determined case by case based on the company's economic capacity.
The risk doesn't just concern individual, prominently visible claims. Template claims in particular, ones that repeat automatically across many product pages or documents, multiply the risk: a single impermissible claim in a template can appear hundreds or thousands of times across a website, substantially increasing the basis on which a fine would be calculated.
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