Navigating the complex world of sustainability regulations has never been easy but for businesses selling to consumers in the EU it’s about to step up a notch. And far from being immune, Certified B Corps have work to do if they want to continue using the B Corp logo in the European market.
The EU’s new Directive 2024/825, also known as the “Empowering Consumers for the Green Transition” or “Empowering Consumers” Directive, brings in much stricter rules around environmental claims and sustainability labels on consumer products.
This directive aims to combat greenwashing, ensuring transparency and accountability in environmental marketing therefore driving more sustainable consumer choice-making and demand for genuinely lower impact products. And while this article focuses on the EU, pressure on green claims is increasing elsewhere too, including with recent legislative changes in the UK.
While ‘greenwashing’ awareness has improved in recent years, now is the time for every business to review its green claims – especially B Corps, for reasons we’ll explain.
At Greenheart, we understand these challenges and offer the expertise to guide your business toward full compliance and genuine sustainability. Read on for all the detail…
Overview of the Empowering Consumers Directive
The Directive takes aim at unfair commercial practices that mislead consumers, preventing them from making informed, truly sustainable choices. This includes widespread practices such as:
- Early obsolescence of goods
- Misleading environmental claims (“greenwashing”)
- Non-transparent and non-credible sustainability labels
As we detail below, the Directive pushes businesses to provide clear, substantiated environmental claims, and to focus on product durability and circularity. So if you’re selling products to EU consumers and making sustainability claims, you need to play by these new rules.
Key Provisions of the Empowering Consumers Directive
Here are the key provisions you need to be aware of:
- Prohibition of Generic Environmental Claims
Terms like “eco-friendly,” “green,” or “climate neutral” are banned unless supported by recognized, verifiable evidence.
- Restrictions on Sustainability Labels
Sustainability labels – like B Corp – must be based on certified schemes or established by public authorities. Self-created labels are out. Critically for B Corps, such labels must meet a number of requirements, including being monitored by “a third party whose competence and independence from both the scheme owner and the trader are ensured based on international, Union or national standards and procedures.” So, not B Lab itself – see below.
- Requirements for Future Environmental Performance Claims
Claims about future environmental benefits must be backed by clear, objective, publicly available, and verifiable commitments, including a realistic implementation plan regularly verified by an independent third party.
- Transparency in Product Comparisons
When comparing products based on environmental or social characteristics, businesses must provide information about the comparison method, the products involved, and measures to keep the information up to date. - Disclosure of Product Durability and Reparability
Businesses are required to inform consumers about the existence of commercial guarantees of durability longer than two years and provide reparability scores where available.
EU Member States have until 27 March 2026 to transpose the Directive into national law, with enforcement beginning on 27 September 2026. That is the critical date for businesses to work towards.
Failure to comply is likely to lead to financial penalties, reputational damage and possible exclusion from public procurement opportunities.
What does the Empowering Consumers Directive mean for B Corps?
The Directive requires sustainability labels, like the B Corp logo, to meet “minimum conditions of transparency and credibility, including the existence of objective monitoring of compliance with the requirements of the scheme.” Such monitoring, as mentioned above, needs to be undertaken by an independent third party.
While B Corp certification already involves verification, this is currently done by B Lab itself (the standards setter) and therefore not ‘independent’ for the purposes of the Directive.
In addition, certification schemes that allow for the use of labels need to:
- be open under transparent, fair, and non-discriminatory terms to all traders willing and able to comply with the scheme’s requirements;
- be developed by the scheme owner in consultation with relevant experts and stakeholders; and
- set out procedures for dealing with non-compliance with the scheme’s requirements and provide for the withdrawal or suspension of the use of the sustainability label by the trader in case of non-compliance with the scheme’s requirements.
The new B Corp standards (launched last month) were developed with these requirements in mind and we now know that a key change is genuine third party assurance, though B Lab has not yet revealed the details of who those parties will be.
What is certain is that:
-
- no company verified by B Lab will be compliant with the Directive;
- B Lab will not be implementing third party verification to the current standards, and there may indeed be other ways in which the current standards will be non-compliant;
- therefore in order to become compliant with the Directive and continue using the B Corp logo in the EU, a B Corp will need to be verified by the independent third party to the new standards.
And there’s more: leaving aside B Corp, broader generic environmental claims may still need to be dealt with separately, as will specific product-level claims. So we recommend reviewing all environmental claims being made in marketing very carefully to ensure they comply (see below).
How should you prepare for the Empowering Consumers Directive?
B Corps:
- Understand ASAP your company’s pathway to recertification under the new standards by 27 September 2026 and what your contingency plan should be if that’s not realistic:
- If your company is UK-headquartered, B Lab UK should have reached out to you already to assist with this (see email below). If not, we encourage you to notify them here;
- US companies can contact B Lab US & Canada here;
- If you’re based elsewhere, we recommend making contact with your local B Lab country partner;
- We are offering a gap analysis service so you can assess quickly what your main challenges and likely re-certification pathway will be;
- We are also offering deep modular support to help companies align with all aspects of the new standards – get in touch with the team here if you’d like to know more;
- Discuss with relevant internal stakeholders – and your legal advisors if necessary – the implications of not being able to use the B Corp logo in the EU after 27 September if recertification by that date is not realistic.
All companies (including B Corps):
- Audit all sustainability claims or logos being made in marketing materials – are they all capable of being substantiated and, where necessary, third party verified?
- Ensure product durability and repairability information is clear;
- Collate and centralise information that substantiates claims – update marketing materials where necessary and ensure responsibility is clear;
- Initiate or update greenwashing training, especially for your marketing teams. It has never been more important for sustainability and marketing professionals to work together;
- Engage with your legal advisors to ensure the business fully understands its position and associated risks.
For completeness, here is what B Lab UK told companies in a recent email:
“If a B Corp operates within the European Union (EU) and engages in business-to-consumer (B2C) communications or transactions, its recommended recertification route may be impacted.
B Corp certification under our new standards and certification model will meet the legal requirements for being a valid sustainability label in the EU, whereas the current certification model (version 6) will not comply with the ECGT – Directive 825/2024/EU. B Lab is working to create certification pathways to enable ECGT affected companies to be certified on the new standards and certification model by September 2026.
If your company operates within the EU and engages in B2C transactions or communications, we strongly recommend engaging with the new standards right away, self-assessing against these and start identifying and working towards meeting the standards, to ensure readiness for when such a pathway becomes available.”
How Greenheart Can Assist
At Greenheart, we are ready to help companies navigate this change. In addition to B Corp readiness, our sustainability consulting services include:
- Analysis of marketing materials for potentially ‘at risk’ claims;
- Assessing with you the strategic importance of such claims and whether they fit within a robust and strategic sustainability narrative for your business;
- Reviewing scientific substantiation for your claims and helping update/source evidence accordingly.
We would always recommend working with your legal advisors when it comes to risk and compliance matters to complement the practical and technical sustainability advice we are able to provide.
Connect with us today to ensure your business has a compliance pathway: request a no-obligation callback here.
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