The EU's Empowering Consumers for the Green Transition Directive — EmpCo — is now in force, and it changes the rules of engagement for anyone who writes sustainability copy. Under the new regime, an unfounded claim can breach the law even if you never intended to mislead anyone.

That's the hardest shift for comms teams to absorb. The directive doesn't just police what you say. It polices what your words and images infer. A tree in a photo with no context, a green font, an initiative trumpeted without mentioning the less welcome impact of the business's mainstay — all of it can now imply something is greener than it really is.

In plain terms: your colour palette just became a compliance question.

What does the directive actually target?

EmpCo is one of several Brussels rule sets in this space, but it's the one with the greatest bearing on language and communication. Its stated aim is preventing unfounded and unfair environmental claims — and it hands regulators stricter conditions to enforce that.

For practitioners, the WEF advises three concrete steps:

• Spend time understanding the new directive in detail
• Scrutinise the extent to which each claim can be verified
• Review the transparency and accuracy of everything you intend to communicate

For most teams responsible for that, it looks like a lot of work.

Why misleading claims are rising, not falling

Here's the uncomfortable backdrop. Research out this week found the number of misleading claims has risen by 28% in a year — a jump of more than a quarter, in twelve months.

The mix of companies embroiled in those claims has broadened too. It's no longer just conventional polluters. Sectors with low-carbon and "transitional" business activities are now implicated, and financial services has apparently become the most exposed sector of all.

The takeaway: this isn't a fringe problem confined to oil and gas marketing decks anymore.

What about greenhushing?

There's a genuine tension here, and the World Economic Forum spelled it out this week. Companies may respond to the new rules by restricting what they say about genuinely sustainable products, services and initiatives — the practice known as "greenhushing."

That caution carries a double cost, the WEF argues. It puts more illegitimate claims in the public spotlight by leaving the field clearer, and it reduces informed choice for customers.

"When companies remain silent about credible climate action, they risk missing opportunities to help consumers, employees, and other stakeholders make more informed and sustainable choices," the WEF piece says.

"They may also struggle to translate genuine progress into reputational, customer and talent benefits, while losing an important opportunity to maintain momentum and encourage action across their value chains."

So silence isn't a safe harbour either. The directive narrows the corridor between overclaiming and saying nothing at all.

So what changes for comms teams?

The need for caution around sustainability claims is nothing new. What's changed is the legislative bar around intent and inference. "We didn't mean it that way" is no longer much of a defence when a regulator reads your imagery the way a consumer would.

There is a countervailing view, of course: that robust, verified claims will make purchasing easier and increase trust in the information — and in the organisations sharing it. That's certainly the directive's intention. But many companies have spent years building habits around how they communicate the positive, greener corners of their business, and those habits now face a forced reassessment of method and evidence alike.

Every environmental claim you make from here needs an evidence file behind it.