Green Claims: the audit starting September 27

On a Tuesday morning, your marketing manager hands you a pack and asks whether you can still print 'eco-friendly' on it. You read the word again, you frown, and one very simple question crosses your mind: what exactly are we basing that claim on. You call quality, then procurement, then your long-time supplier, and everyone points you to someone else without ever producing a precise document. Yet the word is everywhere at your company: product sheet, website, ongoing campaign. And that morning, it hits you: nobody knows where it comes from. This video starts from that scene and gives it a deadline: September 27, the day from which an environmental claim without traced evidence becomes prohibited. The proposal nicknamed Green Claims was indeed withdrawn as a text, and the video keeps the logic of that withdrawal: a withdrawn text does not mean an abandoned subject, because the ban on greenwashing keeps advancing through other channels. The figures come from the European Commission, which examined 150 environmental claims in 2020: 53% turned out vague, misleading or unfounded, and 40% were backed by no evidence at all. In other words, more than one claim in two would not survive an audit, and nearly one in two rests on nothing. On penalties, French law leaves little room: 100,000 euros in administrative fines for a legal entity in case of a non-compliant carbon-neutrality claim, under article L229-69 of the Environmental Code, and up to 10% of revenue in criminal fines for misleading commercial practice, a ceiling raised to 80% of advertising spend for environmental claims, under article L132-2 of the Consumer Code. Against that backdrop, the proposed way out is not legal — it is methodical: four concrete verbs, inventory, qualify, prove, trace. First, inventory every claim you publish, wherever it appears. Then qualify each one, deciding between vague and precise, because only the precise is defensible. Then prove, by attaching each precise claim to a dated, named piece of evidence. Finally, trace, by keeping the evidence trail so you can pull it out on inspection day. The central message fits in one sentence: a claim without traced evidence becomes illegal on September 27, and four inventory steps are enough to go from missing proof to traced proof. This episode continues the Taranis AI series on method: the same thesis as the previous parts — diagnosis before tools — applied this time to environmental-claim compliance.

You're at your desk on a Tuesday morning when your head of marketing drops a package in front of you and asks: can we still print eco-responsible on this? You read the label again, you frown, and one very simple question crosses your mind: what exactly are we basing that on? You call quality, then procurement, then your long-time supplier. Everyone points you to someone else, and nobody ever pulls out an actual document. And the word is everywhere at your company: on the product sheet, on the website, on the brochure handed out at the last trade show. And that morning, it hits you: nobody knows where that word came from, who approved it, or where the proof is sleeping. So stay with me, because by the end of this video you'll hold a simple four-step grid to audit every claim before the deadline. Inventory, qualify, prove, trace: four concrete verbs you can start tomorrow morning with one person, a spreadsheet, and no experts on the payroll. One honest warning before we go: this video gives no legal advice, only a field method to take you from no evidence to traced evidence. And first, let's clear up a confusion that trips everyone up: no, this is not the famous Green Claims directive you keep reading about. That proposal, the one nicknamed Green Claims, was indeed withdrawn in June two thousand twenty-five, and plenty of people concluded the subject was buried. Classic mistake, because the real text lives elsewhere: European directive two thousand twenty-four, eight hundred twenty-five, voted, published, and in force. Its nickname, EmpCo, for empowering consumers for the green transition, and its application deadline is September twenty-seventh, twenty twenty-six. Hold on to this logic: a withdrawn text doesn't mean a dropped subject, because another text, a broader one, has already taken over. What awaits you on that date, I've chosen to call the September twenty-seventh audit, because that is exactly what the rule will demand of you. Not an inspector knocking on your door one morning, but a clean ban on generic claims without proof, on every surface your customers can see. Eco-responsible, sustainable, carbon neutral, green, natural: without solid, accessible evidence behind them, these words simply become forbidden. Why such a harsh rule, you might ask. The answer lies in a survey the European Commission ran in two thousand twenty. One hundred fifty environmental claims put under the microscope, on everyday products, across every aisle and every product category. Hold on to your seat: fifty-three percent of them turned out to be vague, misleading, or unfounded, well over half of the entire sample. More than one in two, in other words. And once you run your own inventory, you'll understand very quickly why this number surprises no auditor. And that's not all: forty percent are backed by no evidence whatsoever, no study, no calculation, not a single verifiable certificate. No calculation, no study, no certificate, and yet the promise sits there on the packaging as if it had always been self-evident. Faced with that finding, Europe decided to flip the burden of proof: from now on, whoever makes the claim must prove it. Period. And the cost of doing nothing is already written into French law: a non-compliant carbon neutrality claim exposes you to one hundred thousand euros in administrative fines. One hundred thousand euros for a legal entity, for a single mention, and it takes just one inspection for the bill to land. On the criminal side, the ceiling climbs to ten percent of revenue for misleading commercial practice, with the calculation based on your advertising spend. Ten percent of revenue. Take thirty seconds to run that rate against your own accounts and feel what it weighs. I can already hear you: we're business to business, all of this is for consumer brands. Let's be honest, because on paper it's true: the rule targets practices toward consumers first, not your contracts between professionals. Except your consumer-facing customers will have to prove what they claim, and who are they going to turn to for your evidence? To you, obviously, in a cascade: your technical data sheet becomes their supporting document, and your silence becomes their risk. Now add reputation: public doubt about your commitments heals far more slowly than a package that gets reprinted in a few weeks. Now the method, because that's where everything is decided: four steps, one person in charge, less than a week of focused work. Step one, inventory: list every visible claim, packaging, product sheets, website, brochures, campaigns, without forgetting or downplaying anything. Step two, qualify: for each claim, decide between vague and specific, verifiable and not, and accept that this step stings a little. Step three, prove: dig out the study, the calculation, or the certificate behind every promise, then rephrase or drop anything that still stands unsupported. Step four, trace: archive every piece of evidence, dated and named, in one single folder, because evidence you can't find again is evidence that doesn't exist. And here we are, back in your Tuesday-morning office, except this time that questionable package doesn't scare you anymore, because you're holding the file. An environmental claim without traced evidence becomes illegal on September twenty-seventh. The way out isn't legal, it's methodical: four inventory steps, from no evidence to traced evidence. Keep the compass: an environmental claim without traced evidence becomes illegal on September twenty-seventh, and the way out isn't legal, it's methodical. If this analysis speaks to you, let's dig into it at TARANIS AI: the diagnosis, the method, the experience, everything is there to support you. You'll find all the links in the comments of this video. Share your experience in the comments, I read everything and I answer each one. But tell me: have you ever had to hunt for the proof behind your own claims and come up empty?