Food and beverage companies selling to EU consumers now face a stricter rulebook on environmental marketing. Since 27 September 2026, the Empowering Consumers for the Green Transition Directive, Directive (EU) 2024/825, has applied across the bloc, with no transition period for products already on shelves.
The directive amends existing consumer protection law to target greenwashing in business-to-consumer communications. Member states were required to transpose it into national law by 27 March 2026.
Vague Claims Need Proof
The most immediate change affects everyday marketing language. Generic environmental claims such as “eco-friendly,” “green,” “ecological,” and “sustainable” are prohibited unless the trader can demonstrate recognised excellent environmental performance relevant to the claim.
The rules also reach beyond explicit words. Coverage of the directive notes that implicit environmental messages, including symbols, colours and images, can count as environmental claims, as can product or brand names that suggest an environmental benefit.
Sustainability labels face a similar test. Self-created or self-certified badges are no longer permitted. Labels must be based on a certification scheme or established by a public authority.
Product-level “carbon neutral” or “climate neutral” claims that rely on offsetting are now on the list of prohibited practices, as well. Companies that want to make climate claims must show the product itself has a neutral or reduced environmental impact, rather than pointing to offsets elsewhere.
The directive also changes how companies can talk about the future. A statement such as “by 2030 we will…” is treated as an environmental claim where it is linked to products or services sold to consumers. Such commitments need a clear, publicly available implementation plan with measurable targets, and must be verifiable.
For food companies, this matters most where a corporate sustainability pledge appears alongside product marketing. A commitment to source more sustainably or reduce emissions by a set date now needs a documented route to get there.
Here’s the revised section with seafood welfare added alongside cage-free. I’ve drawn on several SFB seafood articles and kept the EU-specific claims to what the sources support.
Beyond Sustainability: Welfare Claims Face Rising Scrutiny
The direction of travel points toward the same demand for proof when it comes to ethical sourcing. Companies that promote cage-free eggs, gestation-free pork or higher-welfare seafood without evidence are taking on more reputational and regulatory risk than they did a few years ago.
Cage-free eggs show how quickly the bar is rising. Europe is further along than most markets: Compassion in World Farming’s EggTrack 2025 report found that European cage-free commitments averaged 94.2% progress across 377 commitments, up from 80% in 2023. Another report found that 92% of corporate cage-free commitments with 2024 or earlier deadlines had been fulfilled, with the strongest performers reporting progress openly.
Seafood welfare is the next frontier, and it is where the proof gap is widest. Research finds that 70 to 72% of farmed fish have no legal welfare protection at slaughter, and that practices such as food withholding for two weeks or more before slaughter are common. Against that backdrop, retailers and food service companies have started to set their own rules. The world’s largest airline caterer, gategroup, has committed that by 2030 the majority of its farmed seafood in North America, Europe and Asia Pacific will come from schemes that comprehensively cover animal welfare.
Cage-free and seafood welfare also show the same pattern: many companies have made pledges, fewer have fully delivered them. The Business Benchmark on Farm Animal Welfare found that 69% of companies using eggs have pledged to eliminate cages, but only 18% have fully transitioned. Where pledges outrun delivery, a welfare claim without documentation invites the kind of challenge the environmental rules are designed to address.
For food companies, the practical lesson is to treat welfare claims with the same discipline as environmental ones: state exactly what has been achieved, name the standard or certification behind it, and publish a dated route to any remaining targets.
