Can I still say “eco-friendly”, “green” or “climate friendly”?

Published 9 July 2026 · Directive (EU) 2024/825 · General information, not legal advice

This is general information to help you screen your own copy — not legal advice. A flag here is a well-founded warning, not a ruling. Only the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) can interpret the directive with binding force, and the European Commission’s guidance on it is non-binding. Where money or reputation is at stake, take the cited provision to qualified counsel before you act.

Why these words are singled out

Directive (EU) 2024/825 adds Annex I point 4a to the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive (2005/29/EC), banning:

“Making a generic environmental claim for which the trader is not able to demonstrate recognised excellent environmental performance relevant to the claim.”

The problem the EU is targeting is vagueness. A “generic environmental claim” is one where, in the directive’s terms, the specification of the claim is not given in clear and prominent terms on the same medium. “Eco-friendly” tells a shopper nothing concrete and cannot be checked — so it is only allowed where you hold recognised proof that the product genuinely is an environmental leader.

What counts as “recognised excellent performance”?

The directive points to demonstrable, recognised excellence rather than self-assessment. In practice that means schemes such as:

• The EU Ecolabel — the EU’s official environmental label, awarded on lifecycle criteria.
• An ISO 14024 Type I ecolabel — a third-party, multi-criteria certification relevant to your product category.

Holding a relevant scheme like these can support a generic claim. An in-house badge, a supplier’s marketing, or a single-attribute tick does not.

What to do with your copy

You have three honest routes:

1. Replace the vague word with the specific, provable benefit. Instead of “eco-friendly bottle”, say “bottle made with 80% post-consumer recycled aluminium” — concrete, checkable, and it doesn’t rely on the generic-claim rule at all.
2. Keep the generic word only where a qualifying certification covers it, and show that certification clearly on the same medium.
3. Drop it. If there’s no specific benefit and no certification, the safest move is to remove the word.

“Green” and “climate friendly” are treated the same way as “eco-friendly” — all are generic environmental claims. Watch for them hiding in brand names, straplines and product names too: the Commission’s guidance treats those as claims that can need substantiation, not decoration exempt from the rules.