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<p>The European Union has increasingly relied on consumer law to combat greenwashing, most notably through the Empowering Consumers Directive (Directive 2024/825) which amends the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive (UCPD). The reforms tighten substantiation by requiring verifiable claims, restricting generic environmental assertions to cases demonstrating recognized excellent performance or specific justification, and limiting claims of carbon neutrality based on greenhouse gas offsetting. However, the 2025 withdrawal of the proposed Green Claims Directive has left the UCPD as the EU’s primary instrument against greenwashing. This article argues that, while these reforms can mitigate greenwashing practices, they cannot systematically resolve the accountability gap. This gap manifests at three interconnected levels: a normative gap stemming from the UCPD’s reliance on open norms, an enforcement gap arising from fragmented national implementation, and a consumer cognition gap due to the limitations of the average-consumer benchmark in assessing technical and scientific environmental claims. The article proposes institutional reforms, including the establishment of a centralized oversight mechanism, to complement the Empowering Consumers Directive.</p>

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Addressing the Accountability Gap in Greenwashing: The Limits of Regulation on Commercial Communication at the European Level

  • 期刊论文

  • 发表日期：

    2026年4月18日

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  • Ferna İpekel Kayalı,
  • Ekrem Solak

摘要

The European Union has increasingly relied on consumer law to combat greenwashing, most notably through the Empowering Consumers Directive (Directive 2024/825) which amends the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive (UCPD). The reforms tighten substantiation by requiring verifiable claims, restricting generic environmental assertions to cases demonstrating recognized excellent performance or specific justification, and limiting claims of carbon neutrality based on greenhouse gas offsetting. However, the 2025 withdrawal of the proposed Green Claims Directive has left the UCPD as the EU’s primary instrument against greenwashing. This article argues that, while these reforms can mitigate greenwashing practices, they cannot systematically resolve the accountability gap. This gap manifests at three interconnected levels: a normative gap stemming from the UCPD’s reliance on open norms, an enforcement gap arising from fragmented national implementation, and a consumer cognition gap due to the limitations of the average-consumer benchmark in assessing technical and scientific environmental claims. The article proposes institutional reforms, including the establishment of a centralized oversight mechanism, to complement the Empowering Consumers Directive.