EU Green Claims Compliance Kit — every live claim compliant, rewritten, or retired before 27 September 2026

The five kill zones (check your homepage against them now)

Generic claims"Eco-friendly", "green", "climate friendly", "biodegradable"… banned unless you hold a narrow official carve-out — or specify the claim, with numbers, on the same pack panel or page. The kit maps the exact phrase list the law names.

Whole-product claims"Made with recycled material" reads as the entire product. Claims about one component or one site can no longer speak for the whole product or company.

Offset-based carbon claims"Climate neutral", "CO2 compensated", "carbon positive" built on offsets are banned outright — no asterisk or methodology page fixes them. Real reduction claims survive, stated the right way.

Labels & badgesA sustainability badge must come from public authorities or a genuine third-party certification scheme. In-house leaf icons and pay-to-display seals fail as written.

Durability & repair infoSeven new banned practices on durability claims, update spin, and consumables — plus new product-page duties: the official guarantee notice, the durability label, software-update info.

Enforcement is not hypothetical — these all happened under the old law

KLM — DKK 3M (~€401,000) fine, July 2026The Danish Consumer Ombudsman fined KLM over "a big step forward towards slightly more sustainable travel" — at roughly 1% sustainable aviation fuel. An Amsterdam court had already held its "Fly Responsibly" ads misleading in March 2024.

Katjes — Germany's highest civil court, June 2024The BGH held "klimaneutral" advertising unlawful: ambiguous eco-terms must be explained in the ad itself, and offsetting is not reduction.

Zalando — flags removed, February 2024After Commission and consumer-network action, Zalando removed its sustainability flags and icons across the platform. A 20-airline sweep and a Shein action followed.

Globally, greenwashing cases hit roughly 2,700 in 2025 — about double 2020 (reported figures). From 27 September, the practices above stop being case-by-case arguments and become per-se blacklist entries — as each Member State applies its transposing law (see the status map in the kit).

What's in the kit

10-minute triage — run your live claims through the five kill zones and know what's exposed before lunch.
The banned-claims map — all twelve new blacklist points verbatim with plain-language readings, the official generic-phrase list, the carve-out checklist, and a state-by-state transposition table stamped 21 August 2026.
13 claim-rewrite patterns — "climate neutral", "eco-friendly", "sustainable collection", "recyclable", "lasts twice as long"… each documented pattern → why it fails as written → a compliant reformulation shape. Every entry flagged illustrative: patterns, not cleared copy — plus an electronics/consumables annex.
The substantiation file — per-claim evidence memos and a claim register (CSV included): the audit-ready core that answers regulators, marketplaces, and procurement.
Carbon & future claims deep-dive — what the offset ban kills, what lifecycle reduction claims survive, how to talk about funding projects honestly, and the full checklist for "net zero by 2040"-style promises.
Labels & certifications — the four scheme criteria, the three official carve-out pathways, and a decision tree for your own badges and scores.
Durability & guarantee duties — the new product-page information requirements, with instructions for deploying the EU's official harmonised notice and label (prescribed formats — we show you how to use them, never a redesign).
Edge cases & FAQ — old stock and sell-through first (the EU networks' published transition posture), B2B, non-EU sellers, marketplaces, comparison tools, and a UK-divergence one-pager.
Update tracker option — weekly transposition scoreboard, first-enforcement alerts, guidance updates.

Markdown + CSV templatesEvery claim cited & datedCurrent to 21 August 2026

US$190 one-off

Rises toward $290 as 27 September nears. Optional update tracker (+$49/mo): weekly transposition scoreboard across the 27 states, first EmpCo enforcement actions, Commission-FAQ and guidance changes. Kit current to 21 August 2026, built from the Official Journal text with pinpoint citations.

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Not ready for the full pack? Start with The Twelve Banned Practices Card — US$39.A 5-page slice that fully solves one job: all twelve points verbatim, the phrase list to search your estate for, and a one-page keep / specify / retire rule. The US$39 is credited against the full pack within 30 days. Instant download, 14-day refund.

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Questions we'd ask too

We have warehouses of packaging that says "eco-friendly". Do we destroy it?

Probably not — but don't guess. The EU consumer-protection network published a coordinated transition posture in June 2026 (non-binding): compliance-first and phased, with online claims prioritized over printed packaging and corrective action favored over recall-and-destruction for traders showing a good-faith transition. The kit's old-stock one-pager turns that into a sequence: fix digital first, build the dated good-faith record, triage packaging by severity.

Wasn't the Green Claims Directive killed? Is this all dead?

Different instrument — and the confusion is costing teams the deadline. The Green Claims Directive is a stalled proposal (not law, and not formally withdrawn) that would have added ex-ante verification. What applies from 27 September 2026 is Directive (EU) 2024/825 — already law — amending the EU's core consumer-protection directives. The GCD's stall changes nothing about the blacklist.

We're not in the EU. Does this reach us?

Marketing to EU consumers puts you in the consumer-law frame of the states you sell into, wherever you're incorporated — enforcement runs through national authorities, EU-wide network coordination, and increasingly marketplaces and procurement. The kit treats non-EU sellers as first-class buyers and tells you which surfaces to fix first.

Is this legal advice?

No. It's an implementation kit — organized information, rewrite patterns, and templates built from the Official Journal text, with citations and dates on every claim, and honest flags on the few facts still marked unverified. It never issues clearance opinions; rewrite patterns are illustrative and your claims still need substantiation. For load-bearing decisions, involve counsel — this kit makes that conversation shorter and cheaper.

Why trust this pack

Read from the primary source, not summariesEvery regulatory claim is taken from the instrument itself — the Official Journal text, the regulator's own published guidance, the framework document — not from a secondary explainer. Where a pack turns on a list (product categories, control sets, banned practices), that list was read from the source document item by item and checked against it again before release.

Every claim carries a dateEach pack states the date its research was verified, and each page in it is stamped with what it is current to. Where a fact is contested, provisional or merely announced rather than in force, it says so in the text instead of being smoothed over.

Changes are published, not quietly patchedWhen a tracked instrument moves, the change is dated in a public changelog and on the deadline radar. You can see what changed and when, before you buy and after.

Independent, and explicit about itKilde is not affiliated with, endorsed by or approved by any regulator, standards body or scheme operator. Where a pack covers a private framework, it identifies controls by number and title and directs you to the operator's own document.

See it before you payFour real pages of every pack are free — the actual cover and opening section, not a brochure. Every purchase carries a 14-day unconditional refund.

Kilde sells document templates and organised regulatory information. It is not a law firm and does not provide legal advice; buying a pack does not create an attorney-client relationship. Built and maintained by Kilde's founder, a practising attorney admitted to a US state bar (not an EU or Hong Kong admission). About Kilde · Verification log · Refunds · Terms · Privacy · esau@trykilde.com

This edition: v1.0 · current to 21 August 2026 · changelog · EmpCo guides. A copy obtained anywhere else receives no updates and goes stale from the day it was taken.

Disclaimer: General information and implementation templates only; not legal advice; no attorney-client relationship. The rules discussed apply through national transposition and vary across the 27 Member States; the kit keys to the directive baseline and dates every claim. © 2026 Kilde.

On 27 September, "eco-friendly" stops being copy and starts being a blacklist entry.