EmpCo in action
Are your sustainability claims ready for September 2026?
The EU's Empowering Consumers for the Green Transition Directive (EmpCo) will introduce stricter requirements for environmental and social claims, sustainability labels, climate statements and consumer-facing marketing communications from September 2026.
Many organisations may be using sustainability claims that are well intentioned but could become difficult to defend under the new rules. This whitepaper explores the key changes, common risk areas, and practical steps organisations can take now to review claims, strengthen evidence and build effective governance.
What’s inside
- What EmpCo changes from September 2026: A clear overview of how the EU’s Empowering Consumers for the Green Transition Directive will affect consumer-facing sustainability claims, including environmental claims, social claims, sustainability labels, durability statements, comparative claims and climate-related messaging.
- Why well-intentioned claims may become high risk: An explanation of how broad, absolute or poorly evidenced claims can create compliance, reputational and commercial risk, even when they were originally developed in good faith.
- The risk areas product, marketing and sustainability teams need to review: Practical guidance on generic environmental claims, climate claims, future performance statements, labels, comparisons, scope and social claims, with clear implications for how claims should be written and approved.
- Red-flag questions to test your current claims: A useful internal checklist to help teams identify high-risk wording, reused sustainability report language, offset-based product claims and labels or icons that could suggest certification without a recognised scheme.
- A six-step readiness plan for 2026: LRQA’s recommended approach for building a claim inventory, strengthening evidence, reclassifying claims by risk, setting up governance, managing approvals and preparing teams before the new rules apply.
