Green Claims: from the European deadlock to the approval of Spain’s sustainable consumption law
This week, the Spanish government approved the draft Sustainable Consumption Law, a text that now enters the parliamentary phase and incorporates part of the European legislation on so-called green claims. This is part of an EU regulatory package made up of two Directives addressing the problem of misleading environmental and social communication and advertising. Spain’s recent step forward coincides with a deadlock in trilogue negotiations led by the European Commission - amidst a significant institutional mess in Brussels - on one of the two Directives still awaiting final approval.
In this article, we’ll analyse the background of green claims, how this regulation is being integrated into Spanish law, and reflect on the broader adaptation to new paradigms in environmental and social communication.
The Green Deal was one of the major political frameworks of the first Von Der Leyen Commission. Approved in 2020, a more cohesive and less polarised public opinion and political conversation around climate action—together with the socio-economic shock of the pandemic—helped position environmental policy as a cornerstone of the European Union. However, by the final stretch of the Commission’s term in 2024, the first political friction emerged over the symbolic issue of protecting the European wolf and its status within the Habitats Directive.
Later, under the new Commission, several key Green Deal items have gradually been simplified—or shelved altogether. The Omnibus package became the simplifying tool for sustainability regulations, systematically pushed from within the institutions. However, this regulatory plan did not initially aim to tackle the issue of greenwashing and social washing. That changed in June, when the second Directive in the green claims package—which outlines levels of rigour and accuracy required for environmental and social statements by organisations—was itself called into question by the European Commission. This means a transformative area of communication for many organisations now finds itself in the midst of a complex regulatory process.
As Politico EU pointed out, the Green Claims Directive has become a symbolic battleground at the heart of political tensions between major party groups in Brussels and the anti-green push by certain political actors. A regulation with relatively limited economic and climate governance impact has ended up at the centre of a debate that affects the balance of power keeping the Von Der Leyen Commission in place during this mandate.
Stepping back from the political moment, the problem of green and social washing in recent years—most visibly by oil companies—was one of the drivers, along with several high-profile court cases, behind the design of a regulation to normalise environmental and social communication and advertising in our daily lives. Countries like Canada, Australia, and the UK had already started down this path. The importance of addressing green and social washing lies in the fact that it’s not just a problem for consumers or businesses. Poor practices also contribute to the discrediting and trivialisation of sustainability as a strategic area of corporate governance and help fuel public fatigue towards narratives of positive impact—narratives that today are often framed within a specific ideological spectrum.
In my view, the Green Claims Directive is a victim of the hypes of our time. In a way, international agreements stemming from the proliferation of commitments since COP21 or the launch of the SDGs—despite being well-founded—have led to an overuse of words and images promising unrealistic outcomes, disconnected from business realities. Environmental policy has also leaned heavily on communication, often without tying it sufficiently to public safety, prosperity, or competitiveness. For instance, in the case of the EU regulation on green claims, its functionality and impact go beyond sustainability: environmental claims belong especially within the domain of competition law and consumer protection.
To put it another way:
If a company (or public authority) advertises that its activity generates regional economic development and helps fight climate change without providing any data or justification, where does that leave a competing company that is working to include long-term unemployed people in its workforce and has committed to sourcing from suppliers with emissions policies operating within 20 km of its headquarters?
Beyond the European political context, what is clear is that if Brussels fails to clarify the regulatory fit of the green claims package, it will lead to legal uncertainty, compliance confusion, and likely national fragmentation. That’s because the now-stalled Directive was meant to reinforce a set of regulatory measures already in place and undergoing transposition. As of today, in the European Union, any environmental or social claim must already be clear, verifiable, and substantiated under the Consumer Empowerment Directive, known as “EmpCo,” which among other things amends Directive 2005/29/EC on unfair commercial practices. This first piece of legislation—due to be transposed by March 2026—seeks to provide consumers with reliable information on environmental and social issues that may be misleading or create unfair competition.
Despite the regulatory confusion, Spain, like Germany and Denmark, has already begun transposing EmpCo through its draft Sustainable Consumption Law. This law will ban generic environmental and social claims unless the company can “demonstrate excellent environmental performance,” prohibit commonly used terms, and prevent companies from claiming carbon neutrality if their strategy relies on third-party offsetting. Moreover, the Spanish bill goes beyond the Directive itself, banning advertising of fossil fuels altogether.
However, until the Green Claims Directive is passed—the Commission’s latest update is that trilogue negotiations with the Council and Parliament are ongoing—there will be no requirement for prior validation of environmental and social claims by the organisations making them, as proposed in the EU draft. Instead, the transposition of EmpCo will further refine existing regulations on misleading advertising and unfair competition.
EmpCo has implications on multiple levels: for consumers, who deserve accurate and trustworthy information; for companies, that invest in sustainability and want to avoid unfair competition; and even for those people and organisations who are openly sceptical of sustainability. If they choose not to communicate that they are “green” or “socially responsible,” they now have better tools to avoid doing so. As European Commission Vice-President Teresa Ribera put it: “You may claim being green or you may decide not to do it. But customers deserve respect.”
Green claims are closely linked to consumer and user protection, as well as to competition between companies. Green and social washing is no longer just an ethical or reputational issue—it has become a legal and financial risk. The next major challenge is for organisations to embed this into their operations through a redesign of internal communication processes and the use of tools to properly explain and verify what they say. A broad spectrum of organisations interested in making their environmental and social efforts visible agree that society is moving toward a new paradigm in information and communication—one that will require a cultural shift in how things are explained.
From this growing experience, we may also find solutions to tackle one of the greatest challenges facing the environment today: climate disinformation.