{"id":40359,"date":"2026-05-13T06:23:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T06:23:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/40359\/"},"modified":"2026-05-13T06:23:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T06:23:12","slug":"eus-new-greenwashing-regulations-bring-sharper-penalties","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/40359\/","title":{"rendered":"EU’s New Greenwashing Regulations Bring Sharper Penalties"},"content":{"rendered":"

New EU greenwashing regulations threaten hefty penalties and litigation for financial institutions and corporations that fail to verify their ESG marketing.<\/p>\n

Under new EU greenwashing regulations, companies making false or misleading sustainability claims could face hefty penalties as the Empowering Consumers for the Green Transition Directive<\/a> takes effect on September 27. The most brazen scofflaws should expect fines of up to a 4% of the company\u2019s annual gross income, product recalls, and possible class-action lawsuits, under the directive.<\/p>\n

Though the Directive sets a framework, it leaves the precise levels of those penalties to each European Union member state, Mateusz Le\u017anicki, a senior associate at global law practice Dentons<\/a>\u2019 Warsaw office, told Global Finance. \u201cThat said, the stakes are high \u2014 in a number of jurisdictions, penalties for large-scale greenwashing directed at consumers can reach up to 10% of a company\u2019s annual turnover, with personal liability for individual managers on top.\u201d<\/p>\n

Related: Sustainable Finance Awards 2026: Environmental Rollbacks Ding Markets<\/a><\/p>\n

The complete penalty landscape is still evolving as implementing the directive into local commercial regulations is an ongoing process. Germany and Italy already have implemented the enabling legislation, while France, Belgium, and Poland are in advanced stages of transposing the directive into national law.<\/p>\n

Historically, France, Germany, the Netherlands, the Nordic countries, and Poland have been the most active enforcers in this space, while the Central and Eastern European markets have been less developed, Le\u017anicki said. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe full penalty landscape will only become clear as member states complete their transposition, which remains ongoing in many jurisdictions,\u201d he added. \u201cWe are closely monitoring developments across all EU jurisdictions for our clients, as the situation is highly dynamic.\u201d<\/p>\n

Prohibited Practices<\/p>\n

The Directive\u2019s list of 12 prohibited practices includes the use of \u201cempty\u201d marketing terms associated with sustainability, like \u201cgreen,\u201d \u201cenvironmentally friendly,\u201d \u201cenergy efficient,\u201d and \u201cbiodegradable,\u201d that cannot be demonstrated. It also now requires that any sustainability-related claim made by a company about its product be verified by an independent third party. Other issues addressed by the Directive include planned obsolescence and limitations on aftermarket repairs.<\/p>\n

The blacklisted practices hit almost every aspect of a business, including marketing, sales and distribution channels, sales and product teams, product development, supply chains, finance and corporate communications, according to a joint Web posting by My Green Labs, a non-profit that supports sustainable scientific research, and global law firm Eversheds Sutherland.<\/p>\n

Impact on Financial Services<\/p>\n

Companies outside manufacturing should pay close attention, as the directive covers any commercial communications containing environmental claims, including those made by financial institutions<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor financial products specifically, the picture is more nuanced: Retail-facing financial products marketed with sustainability or ESG claims may fall within scope where dedicated sector-specific regulation \u2014 such as SFDR [the E.U.\u2019s Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation] \u2014 does not already cover the ground,\u201d said Le\u017anicki. \u201cThe boundaries here are still being tested, and the interaction between the Directive and financial services regulation is exactly the kind of question companies should be seeking specific legal advice on before September 2026.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New EU greenwashing regulations threaten hefty penalties and litigation for financial institutions and corporations that fail to verify…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":40360,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[39,40,26028,4013,761],"class_list":{"0":"post-40359","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-european-union","10":"tag-greenwashing","11":"tag-regulations","12":"tag-sustainability"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40359","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40359"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40359\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40360"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}