In short and in plain language
Many websites make claims about the environment. They use words like sustainable or climate neutral. New rules apply to such claims.
Some of these claims are now banned outright. It no longer matters if anyone is misled. The rules are very strict for claims based on offsetting emissions.
A self-made green label is also often no longer allowed.
For small firms, the main risk is a formal warning letter. It asks you to stop doing something. So put the proof right next to the claim.
We go through your pages with you. This is not legal advice.
Almost every small business website carries a sentence about the environment somewhere. „Sustainably produced“, „climate-neutral shipping“, a green leaf icon next to the price, a self-designed seal in the footer. Until now such sentences were measured against a single question: do they mislead the reader? From 27 September 2026 (Official Journal of the EU) something different applies to a subset of them. They become unlawful without anyone having to prove that a consumer was misled - the new prohibitions sit in the annex to Section 3(3) of the German Act against Unfair Competition, and that annex lists commercial practices that are unlawful in all circumstances. For a small business this has an uncomfortable consequence: a sentence that has stood unchallenged on your site for years can turn into an actionable breach on that day without the sentence itself having changed. This article sorts out what switches over, which wordings are affected and what a pass through your own website looks like. It describes the legal position on the basis of the published texts and does not replace legal advice on an individual case.
Key takeaways
- The cut-off date is 27 September 2026 (EU Official Journal). The transposition deadline expired on 27 March 2026 (EU Official Journal); the German amending act was promulgated on 19 February 2026 (Federal Law Gazette) and enters into force on that same date.
- New in the annex to Section 3(3) of the Act against Unfair Competition are items 2a, 4a, 4b, 4c and 10a (Federal Law Gazette). What is listed there is unlawful without any balancing exercise - the individual assessment of misleading falls away.
- Claims that rest on offsetting greenhouse gas emissions are hit hardest by item 4c (Federal Law Gazette): no counter-evidence is provided for.
- For the individual business the real risk is the warning letter with a cease-and-desist undertaking and a contractual penalty, not the fine. The ceiling of 50,000 euros (Federal Law Gazette) presupposes a widespread infringement and applies only in coordinated enforcement.
- The explanatory memorandum puts the one-off cost to business at 355.84 million euros (German Bundestag) and assumes that simply reviewing their own statements will cost 661,429 (German Bundestag) freelancers and small traders one hour each.
- A website sweep by the consumer protection authorities considered 42 percent (European Commission) of the environmental claims examined exaggerated, false or deceptive.
27 September 2026 and what switches over on that day
Behind the cut-off date sits the directive on empowering consumers for the green transition. It obliges member states to apply the new measures from 27 September 2026 (Official Journal of the EU) and gave them until 27 March 2026 (Official Journal of the EU) to transpose them into national law. Germany used that window: the Third Act Amending the Act against Unfair Competition was promulgated in the Federal Law Gazette on 19 February 2026 (Federal Law Gazette) and enters into force on 27 September 2026 (Federal Law Gazette). That leaves a good seven months between publication and application - a preparation period expressly described in the legislative process as the latest point in time the directive permits (German Bundestag). The act provides no statutory sell-off period for old marketing material. Anyone still displaying an affected claim on the cut-off date removed it too late. That is the practical core for everyone who maintains their own website copy: there is no transition in which something could still be pushed through.
The second point that is often overlooked: the new rules do not target one sector but every trader dealing with consumers. The explanatory memorandum puts that group at 1,019,285 (German Bundestag) businesses in Germany. The German competition watchdog Wettbewerbszentrale reports that in 2025 7 out of 10 (Wettbewerbszentrale) of its cases concerned matters on the internet; 57 percent (Wettbewerbszentrale) of the legal questions it examined revolved around misleading conduct. If you want to know how much substance your own wording carries, our article on writing good website copy provides the craft underneath.
Five new prohibitions that apply without any balancing
The heart of the amendment is an extension of the annex to Section 3(3) of the Act against Unfair Competition. That annex is the so-called blacklist: what is listed there is unlawful without courts examining whether the consumer was actually misled. That is precisely the difference from the current position. Until now an environmental claim could be defended by showing that the relevant audience understood it correctly. For the new items 2a (Federal Law Gazette), 4a (Federal Law Gazette), 4b (Federal Law Gazette), 4c (Federal Law Gazette) and 10a (Federal Law Gazette) that route disappears.
| What often stands on the page | What is required from the cut-off date | Provision |
|---|---|---|
| „environmentally friendly“, „sustainable“, „green“ with nothing further | A generic environmental claim is unlawful where no recognised excellent environmental performance underlying it can be demonstrated | Annex item 4a UWG |
| „Our company is sustainable“ while only the packaging was changed | A claim about the whole product or the entire business is unlawful where it relates only to a particular aspect | Annex item 4b UWG |
| „climate-neutral shipping“, „CO2-neutral through offsetting“ | Claims based on the offsetting of greenhouse gas emissions that assert neutral, reduced or positive environmental impact are unlawful | Annex item 4c UWG |
| A self-designed leaf or globe seal in the footer | A sustainability label may only be displayed where it is based on a certification scheme or was established by public authorities | Annex item 2a UWG |
| „You get two years of statutory warranty with us“ as a selling point | Requirements imposed by law on all products in the category may not be presented as a distinctive feature of your own offer | Annex item 10a UWG |
Alongside the blacklist there is a second construction site that attracts less attention and creates more work. Section 5(3) of the Act against Unfair Competition gains an item 4 (Federal Law Gazette): anyone advertising future environmental performance to consumers needs clear, objective, publicly available and verifiable commitments set out in a detailed and realistic implementation plan. It requires a plan with measurable, time-bound targets and regular verification by an independent third party. How mandatory information and advertising claims otherwise distribute themselves across a small site is covered in our article on legal notice requirements.
Why „climate-neutral“ is a special case
The scale of the problem is known, and the figures do not come from trade associations but from the authorities themselves. In a coordinated website sweep the European Commission and the national consumer protection authorities examined 344 (European Commission) conspicuous environmental claims in detail. In 42 percent (European Commission) of cases they considered the claim exaggerated, false or deceptive. In 37 percent (European Commission) it consisted of vague generalities, and in 59 percent (European Commission) the trader provided no easily accessible evidence. A later Commission assessment concluded that 53.3 percent (European Commission) of environmental claims contained vague, misleading or unfounded information and that 40 percent (European Commission) were entirely unsubstantiated.
What the Federal Court of Justice decided before the amendment
The amendment did not appear from nowhere. On 27 June 2024 (Federal Court of Justice) the German Federal Court of Justice ruled on advertising using the term „climate-neutral“ under case reference I ZR 98/23. The core of the decision concerns the place of the explanation rather than the term itself. An ambiguous environmental term must be explained where it appears - in the advertising itself. An asterisk leading to a subpage, a link in the footer or a QR code on the packaging is not sufficient under that decision. For websites this is a very concrete instruction: the evidence belongs on the same page and in the same field of view as the claim, not two clicks away in a sustainability chapter.
Aufklärende Hinweise außerhalb der umweltbezogenen Werbung sind insoweit nicht ausreichend.
That requirement has a design consequence: an environmental claim in a three-word tile can no longer be accommodated sensibly once the explanation has to go with it. If you are working on trust elements anyway, our article on customer reviews on your website covers the related question of how much evidence a trust signal needs in order to carry weight.
Seals, logos and homemade badges
Item 2a (Federal Law Gazette) hits a habit that is widespread on small websites: the self-designed badge. A green leaf with the words „environmentally aware“, a banner saying „climate-friendly company“. From the cut-off date, displaying a sustainability label is unlawful where it is neither based on a certification scheme nor established by public authorities. The standard is strict because the problem is large: the EU has 230 (European Commission) sustainability labels and 100 green energy labels with very different levels of transparency. If you are going through the graphics on your site anyway, it is worth reading our article on using website images legally - image rights and label rules land in the same work step.
- Recognised eco-labels remain permissible. In September 2026 the EU Ecolabel was held under 3,665 (European Commission) active licences covering 121,083 products and services; 62 percent (European Commission) of licences are held by small and medium-sized enterprises. The Blue Angel has been awarded to more than 70,000 (Blue Angel) products and services from over 1,800 companies.
- Your own badge needs a system behind it. A certification scheme within the meaning of the provision is more than a list of criteria on your own page. Without independent award, the graphic becomes a breach from the cut-off date - regardless of whether the underlying performance is actually delivered.
- Memberships are not seals. The logo of an association or initiative may be displayed as long as it asserts membership and not verified environmental performance.
This article sorts things out, it does not advise
What the changeover actually costs
The explanatory memorandum contains a cost estimate, and it is more useful for your own planning than any second-hand figure. For the economy as a whole the legislator expects a one-off cost of 355.84 million euros (German Bundestag) and an additional annual cost of 52.2 million euros. The plain review of your own statements is put at one hour per business, affecting 661,429 (German Bundestag) freelancers and small traders. Only where a need for change is identified does the effort rise: for micro-enterprises the memorandum assumes around 2,000 euros (German Bundestag) for four hours of legal advice. You will know comparable orders of magnitude from the question of whether prices belong on the website - there too, effort decides how honest the presentation is.
Reviewing: one hour
The draft allows 60 minutes per business for going through your own statements and reckons with 661,429 (German Bundestag) affected freelancers and small traders.
Substantiating: around 22 hours
For a defensible claim about future environmental performance the memorandum allows roughly 22 hours (German Bundestag) per product or service. The legislator assumes 52,500 (German Bundestag) products and services whose claims will be reworked.
Certifying: 4,500 euros
Maintaining a certified sustainability label costs around 4,500 euros (German Bundestag) in material costs per year and product according to the memorandum. For external verification of an implementation plan, environmental verifier day rates start at 1,000 euros (German Bundestag).
From these figures the memorandum itself draws a sober conclusion: it assumes that only around 20 percent (German Bundestag) of companies will take on the effort of a certified label. The others will drop the badge. This matches the market position: the market share of products carrying state sustainability labels stood at 8.9 percent (German Environment Agency) in 2024, and the federal government's target is a rise to 34 percent (German Environment Agency) by 2030. A regular pass through the copy belongs to website maintenance anyway and can be combined with this task.
The pass through your own website
The practical part is manageable if it runs systematically. If you are currently measuring whether your website brings enquiries anyway, you can do both passes in one go - the pages you open for that are the same ones.
- List all pages, not just the home page. Environmental claims frequently sit in product descriptions, in the footer, on the about page and in image captions.
- Search for signal words. „sustainable“, „environmentally friendly“, „climate-neutral“, „green“, „eco“, „resource-saving“. The search function of your content system finds more in ten minutes than memory does.
- Go through graphics separately. A seal sits on the page as an image and is found by no text search. This includes watermarks in product photos and logos in embedded documents.
- Assign every occurrence to one of three columns. First: claim rests on offsetting - delete, because no counter-evidence is provided for. Second: generic claim without substantiated performance - make it concrete or delete it. Third: concrete, demonstrable statement - place the evidence beside it and keep it.
- Put the evidence in the same place. Following the Federal Court of Justice decision of 27 June 2024, explanatory notes outside the advertising are not sufficient (Federal Court of Justice).
- Record the date and the basis. For every claim you keep, note what it rests on and when you checked it.
If the site is due for an overhaul anyway
How to phrase an environmental claim so it is demonstrable
In the end this is a craft question: how do you write a sentence that shows environmental performance without falling under one of the new prohibitions? Replace the judgement with the observation. „Sustainable“ is a judgement; „no bubble wrap since March 2025“ is an observation. How to sustain that across a whole site is the subject of our work on website copy.
- Instead of „environmentally friendly packaging“: „Shipped in grass paper, paper tape, no plastic in the box.“ Three statements, each individually verifiable, no overall judgement.
- Instead of „climate-neutral shipping“: „We deliver by bicycle within the town of Hildesheim and by parcel service beyond it.“
- Instead of „sustainable company“: „Our electricity has come from a green tariff since 2023, our workshop is heated by a heat pump.“ The reference point is named and matches what was actually changed.
- Instead of your own seal: a short list of measures with the year. It looks less decorative but withstands any follow-up question and does not fall under item 2a.
One last point that is easily missed: the new item 10a (Federal Law Gazette) prohibits presenting statutory requirements as a distinctive feature of your own offer. That does not only affect environmental topics. „With us you get two years of statutory warranty“ or „We comply with the General Data Protection Regulation“ are sentences that sell a matter of course as an advantage. Which parts of this we take on is set out on our services page.
What we can contribute
Sources and studies
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