From 27 September 2026, stricter rules for environmental claims apply across the EU. Blanket advertising terms such as “sustainable” or “climate-neutral” will be inadmissible without robust evidence, and the burden of proof shifts to the advertising company. For the fashion and textile industry, this brings an often-underestimated question to the fore: does a certificate actually cover the individual product being advertised?

What the new law requires

The basis is EU Directive 2024/825, the so-called Empowering Consumers Directive (EmpCo). It amends European unfair-competition law and is implemented in Germany through an amendment to the Act Against Unfair Competition (UWG). Under Article 4 of the directive, Member States had to adopt the measures by 27 March 2026; they apply from 27 September 2026 – with no transition period.

In substance, a range of common practices will fall under an outright prohibition: generic statements such as “environmentally friendly” without a proven, recognised environmental benefit, self-awarded sustainability labels, and product-level climate-neutrality claims that rest on offsetting. Added to this is the reversal of the burden of proof: it is no longer for the competitor to prove that a claim is misleading, but for the company to prove that its claim is correct.

The crux lies in the scope

In practice, much comes down to the scope of a certificate. This applies to the common assessment and certification schemes alike – from product certifications for harmful-substance or material testing of textiles to social and supply-chain standards. None of these schemes certifies “sustainability” across the board; each has a clearly delimited area of application.

A widely used harmful-substance product certificate for textiles, for instance, confirms compliance with limit values for harmful substances in a textile product. Its scope is defined through the article description: certified articles and article groups together with their material composition, colours, finishes and accessories, a product class graded by use and skin contact, and a typical validity of one year. Under the component principle, every component of the article must meet the criteria, and only the variants actually listed are covered. Other schemes apply their own criteria but follow the same underlying logic: a defined area of application with a limited validity.

This creates a gap that is easily overlooked in day-to-day business. A certificate can cover an entire product group – but only those articles that fit within the description, material, colour, product class and validity. The sustainability claim a company advertises with, by contrast, is made for the individual product and must hold true for that specific product. Whether a particular product on sale actually falls under a valid certificate – or whether only a component is certified – does not follow from the mere existence of a certificate, but only from matching the concrete product against the scope details. Across thousands of articles and multi-tier supply chains, this is barely possible to do reliably by hand.

From document to evidence

The benchmark therefore shifts from “Is a certificate in place?” to “Does the evidence support the specific claim?”. What matters is what a piece of evidence actually covers: does it apply to this product, this material, this production site? Is it still valid? And does the claim reach further than the available evidence? Practitioners see the practical key less in additional documents than in structured, linked product, supply-chain and certificate data that make a product-level check possible in the first place – turning a collection of documents into a traceable chain from claim to proof.

How firmly will it be enforced?

Unlike in product-safety law, no dedicated authority in Germany monitors compliance across the board. The UWG is enforced predominantly through civil law: competitors and qualified associations – above all the Wettbewerbszentrale (Centre for Protection against Unfair Competition) and Environmental Action Germany (Deutsche Umwelthilfe) – can issue cease-and-desist warnings and, by way of a preliminary injunction, quickly force a contested claim out of advertising, the online shop and product labelling.

Administrative fines remain the exception. Section 19 UWG provides for them only in the case of widespread infringements with an EU dimension, enforced through coordinated action – but then up to four per cent of annual turnover, or up to two million euros where turnover cannot be determined. For retailers running the same campaign across the EU, this framework can become relevant. The realistic day-to-day risk, however, is the cease-and-desist warning, injunction, contractual penalties and reimbursement of costs – compounded by reputational damage in a market that markets itself on sustainability.

What lies ahead for the industry

For companies, the deadline mainly means taking stock: reviewing their own communication on labels, in the shop, in advertising and at the point of sale, mapping existing evidence to the specific products, closing data gaps, and embedding sign-off processes for claims.

• Review communication: which sustainability claims are actually made on labels, hang tags, in the shop, in advertising and at the point of sale?
• Map the evidence: which certificates, audits and supplier records exist – and do they cover the specific products being advertised?
• Close data gaps: where are details missing, where do sources contradict each other, where is a scope or a validity unclear?
• Embed the processes: who signs off claims, and how is the evidence documented and kept current?

Those who put these points on a structured data foundation early reduce their exposure to the cease-and-desist warnings that represent the realistically greatest risk in Germany – and keep an overview as requirements grow.

Speed Step develops software solutions for the fashion and lifestyle industry (PDM/PLM – SCM – CSR).

Legal basis: Directive (EU) 2024/825, Article 4; the German Act Against Unfair Competition (UWG), Section 19; German Federal Court of Justice, case ref. I ZR 98/23 (2024). This article is for general information only and does not constitute legal advice.