Sustainability Communications to Face Closer Scrutiny in the EU – What You Should Know

As new EU rules  to tackle greenwashing will take effect in September 2026, the RSPO has assessed what this means for its members. Here’s what we can tell you.  

by: Angéline Camus and Ruben Brunsveld

As of 27 September 2026, the Empowering Consumers (EmpCo) Directive will introduce new rules related to sustainability communications across the EU. As part of its  wider efforts to tackle greenwashing, this Directive will enable consumers to make better-informed and more sustainable purchasing decisions and protect them from misleading environmental marketing.

The RSPO fully supports the Directive’s goal to ban untrustworthy claims and labels from the EU market.  At the same time, it is important that companies remain able to effectively communicate their positive actions.

Sustainability labels and environmental claims

The Directive has two strings to its bow. 

Firstly, it sets strict requirements for sustainability labels, which will now need to be third party verified and comply with strong governance and transparency requirements, to be allowed on the EU market. In anticipation of these changes, RSPO has assessed the alignment of its certification scheme with the legislation’s criteria and considers that it complies with the requirements, indicating that the RSPO Label should continue to be allowed on the EU market.(refer to the full analysis here). 

However, it is important to note that there is no formal pre-approval process. This means that National Competent Authorities (NCAs) will be able to assess the legality of labels (and claims) only after the law comes into application.

The second string aims to prevent companies from making misleading claims. To that end, the use of terms like “sustainable” are restricted to very specific conditions, where companies can demonstrate excellent environmental performance relevant to the claim (mostly through public environmental labelling schemes, e.g. EU Ecolabel, Nordic Swan etc.). Several other aspects are included in the list of misleading practices.   Under this new framework, it will therefore be important to focus on specific environmental aspects rather than vague benefits and to provide specification on the same medium (e.g. on pack). 

We recognise that this is a very difficult exercise and that the limited space on pack will often not allow you to give a detailed explanation. We therefore advise members placing products on the EU market to avoid using generic terms like “sustainable” and instead, prefer factual wording such as “RSPO Certified” to reduce risk of non compliance.

Currently, RSPO Members primarily communicate their usage of certified sustainable palm oil (CSPO) through the RSPO Trademark and short standardised statements (“one-liners”), as set out in the RSPO Rules on Market Communications and Claims.  All one-liners and other marketing claims in this document are considered claims in the sense of the Directive and should not include generic terms like “sustainable”. Although the one-liners from paragraph 5.3 do not explicitly use this term, it is still likely that, without further clarification, the NCAs will find these terms insufficiently clear to be understood by the average consumer (and therefore misleading).  We recommend adding a link to a website which explains what certification is in understandable terms.

To support members in these efforts, RSPO has launched a webpage – which explains in simple terms what RSPO Certification covers. Where necessary, this page can be referenced on product packaging to provide additional context and help reduce the risk of claims being perceived as misleading.

RSPO Engagement 

The RSPO Secretariat actively engages with policymakers in Brussels and across EU Member States to ensure they understand the value of the RSPO Certification and the role it has played over the past twenty years. By strengthening this understanding among national competent authorities, we aim to secure the continued use of the RSPO Label in the European Union.

Curious to learn more? Register here to the RSPO webinar, “Navigating the New Regulatory Landscape – Empowering Consumers Directive from an RSPO perspective” on 20 April (2:00 PM CET).

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About the authors:

Angéline Camus steers RSPO’s engagement with policymakers and regulators as RSPO Government Affairs Manager, and is based in Brussels.

Ruben Brunsveld is RSPO’s  Deputy Director for Market Transformation (EMEA) and is based in Stockholm.

For any questions, please reach out to [email protected].