#13 Brussels Shelved the Green Claims Directive. Another Anti-Greenwashing Rule Is Coming Anyway.

In June 2025, the EU's "Green Claims" directive was abandoned. That was real, and it was a setback. But it's not the whole story — and it would be dishonest to stop there.

The text, in discussion since January 2023, would have forced companies to prove environmental claims before printing them. No more "climate neutral" without a published methodology, no more "100% natural" without a certification behind it. On June 18, 2025, the EPP — the largest political group in the European Parliament — asked for it to be scrapped entirely. The Commission said yes, then a few hours later, no — it would keep backing the text, but only if Europe's 30 million micro-enterprises were exempted. Since then, nothing. The text sits shelved under the Commission's "simplification agenda," launched in early 2025.

But another directive didn't die

Here's what usually gets lost in the noise around "Green Claims": there's a second, older text that was never up for debate. The "Empowering Consumers" directive (EU 2024/825) was already adopted in 2024, member states had until March 2026 to transpose it into national law — and from September 27, 2026, it applies across the entire EU, Germany included, with fines of up to 4% of annual turnover.

It bans almost exactly what "Green Claims" wanted to ban, just with less PR around it: blanket words like "sustainable" or "eco-friendly" without immediately visible proof, "climate neutral" promises based only on carbon offsetting, and self-invented eco-labels with no independent certification behind them. So Brussels didn't bury the idea — only the more ambitious of the two texts meant to enforce it.

What we already do — before it becomes mandatory

At Singulaar, our leather is LWG Gold certified — the strictest rating the Leather Working Group gives out, not a self-declared label. We commit to 1 kg less plastic in the ocean per pair sold, a number we can explain and stand behind, not a vague slogan. And we say it plainly: leather is never an environmentally neutral material. We don't claim to have solved that problem. We claim to know exactly where it sits, and to be working to reduce it rather than dress it up.

That's slower, and honestly more expensive, than printing "green" on a box. Until recently, it was also voluntary. From September 27, it won't be anymore — for us, nothing changes, because we're already doing it. For anyone who's only ever printed "sustainable" without ever proving it, everything does.

Brussels had the chance to make one word verifiable for everyone. On "Green Claims," it chose simplification. On the other directive, it doesn't have that choice anymore — that one's already law.

Published July 24, 2026 — updated August 21, 2026.