The fight against greenwashing has entered a new phase. With Italy’s transposition of Directive (EU) 2024/825 (Empowering Consumers for the Green Transition), commonly known as the Greenwashing Directive, both the European and the national legislators have taken a decisive step forward: sustainability can no longer be treated as a mere marketing tool, but must instead become the subject of clear, measurable, and legally verifiable communications. Greenwashing occurs through the use of environmental claims that are ambiguous, false, or unverifiable, and that are capable of influencing consumers’ choices in favor of one product over another by creating the impression of a non-existent or exaggerated environmental commitment on the part of the producing company.
Directive (EU) 2024/825 forms part of the broader framework of the European Green Deal and the Circular Economy Action Plan. Its objective is to strengthen consumer protection against unfair commercial practices linked to misleading environmental claims, while at the same time improving the quality of the information made available to the market. The Directive amends Directive 2005/29/EC on unfair commercial practices by introducing new prohibitions against greenwashing and misleading information regarding the durability and repairability of products. It also amends Directive 2011/83/EU on consumer rights by imposing new pre-contractual information obligations on traders, particularly with regard to guarantees, durability, repairability, spare parts, and software updates.
In Italy, the directive was implemented by Legislative Decree No. 30 of 20 February 2026, published in the Official Gazette No. 56 of 9 March 2026. The measure enters into force on 24 March 2026. The European directive also provides that the national provisions are to apply from 27 September 2026. This means that the regulatory framework is now firmly in place and that companies must use these months to make concrete adjustments to claims, labels, packaging, websites, advertising campaigns, and commercial documentation. The central point of the reform is moving beyond environmental messaging that is suggestive but unsubstantiated. The logic of the directive is clear: consumers must be able to make informed choices on the basis of reliable, comparable, and verifiable information. For this reason, the European legislator does not merely recommend greater fairness, but intervenes by defining new unfair commercial practices and strengthening information obligations toward consumers.
The new rules are particularly significant in three respects:
The first concerns environmental claims. Generic formulas or expressions that emphasize an environmental or ecological property of the product, such as “eco,” “green,” “environmentally friendly,” “sustainable,” or equivalent wording, will no longer be tolerated where such statements are not supported by objective, measurable, and verifiable evidence. The rationale is clear: consumers must not be led to believe that a product, a service, or a company’s entire business activity has a positive or neutral impact on the environment in the absence of measurements based on scientific grounds. The directive therefore strengthens scrutiny of environmental claims and of practices that exploit the public’s growing ecological awareness.
The second aspect concerns sustainability labels. One of the most innovative features of the directive is the prohibition on displaying environmental marks or labels that are not based on recognized certification schemes or established by public authorities. The aim is to prevent the proliferation of symbols, seals, or self-certifications which, while conveying a message of reliability, do not provide real guarantees of transparency and credibility. In other words, labelled sustainability cannot be self-referential.
The third pillar of the reform concerns product durability and reparability. The directive is also intended to counter practices that encourage the premature replacement of goods and conceal essential information about a product’s useful life. Companies will therefore be required to provide greater transparency regarding aspects such as durability, reparability, the availability of software updates, and, more generally, the possibility of prolonged use of the product. In this way, the legislator links consumer protection with the objectives of the ecological transition and the circular economy.
From a systematic standpoint, the directive that has just been transposed is particularly important because it shifts the center of gravity of the regulatory framework: the focus is no longer limited to sanctioning misleading advertising ex post in the most obvious cases, but rather to building a preventive framework that makes companies more accountable. Environmental communication will have to be specific, substantiated, documented, and consistent with the actual impact of the product or the organization. For Italian companies, the transposition opens a phase of adjustment that is not only formal, but also organizational. It will be necessary to review marketing strategies, advertising content, label wording, the sustainability sections of corporate websites, and messages disseminated through social media and promotional channels. Every environmental claim will have to be demonstrable through data and measurements based on scientific methodologies and reliable verification. In the absence of such support, the risk will not be merely reputational, but also legal, in terms of the practice being classified as unfair. The Italian transposition takes place within a European context that is still evolving. The proposed Green Claims Directive, which is still stalled and was designed to introduce even more specific rules on evidence and on the communication of voluntary environmental claims, remains distinct from Directive 2024/825, which today represents the main European instrument that is immediately operational against greenwashing in relations between businesses and consumers.
Circular Srl Rassegna Stampa Partner 24
