Dutch Anti-Greenwashing Rules Take Effect for Consumer-Facing Businesses

Businesses selling to consumers in the Netherlands are now subject to a more explicit set of rules aimed at misleading sustainability marketing. From September 27, 2026, the new requirements tighten how companies can use broad environmental claims, sustainability labels, climate-related promises and information about product durability, repairability and software support.

The measures implement the European Union’s Empowering Consumers for the Green Transition directive in Dutch consumer law. Misleading environmental marketing was already prohibited under general rules on unfair commercial practices, but the new framework adds specific practices to the legal blacklist and creates additional information duties for sellers. That changes the compliance question for many consumer-facing businesses from whether a claim might be misleading in context to whether a particular type of claim or label is prohibited outright.

The Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets, known as ACM, said ahead of the September 27 application date that companies should review existing sustainability claims and make changes where needed. ACM is responsible for supervising compliance. The regulator said clearer information should make it easier for consumers to compare products and brands while limiting the competitive advantage available to companies that rely on misleading claims.

Generic green claims and self-created labels face tighter limits

One of the clearest changes concerns broad statements such as “green,” “environmentally friendly” or “ecological.” Under the new rules, a generic environmental claim can be used without further qualification only when the company can demonstrate recognized excellent environmental performance that is relevant to the claim. Dutch guidance points to frameworks such as the EU Ecolabel or officially recognized national or regional Type I environmental labels as examples of the standard required.

A company can still make a specific environmental statement, but it needs to say clearly what the benefit actually is and support that statement with current evidence. The distinction matters for packaging, advertising, websites and other sales interfaces. A statement such as “made with 70% recycled material” communicates a defined attribute. A broad claim such as “sustainably produced” can imply much more than the evidence establishes.

Sustainability labels also face a stricter gate. A business may not display a voluntary sustainability label unless it is based on a qualifying certification scheme or established by a public authority. The Dutch implementing law requires certification schemes to have public requirements, fair access for qualifying businesses, procedures for non-compliance and independent third-party monitoring. Company-created badges that lack independent control therefore cannot simply continue as a marketing device.

The law also bans environmental claims about an entire product or a company’s overall operations when the claimed benefit applies only to one feature or one part of the business. Another blacklisted practice is claiming that a product has a neutral, reduced or positive impact on greenhouse-gas emissions when that conclusion is based on offsetting emissions. The rule does not prevent a company from disclosing that it buys offsets, but it blocks the use of offsets to support the specified product-level climate claims.

Future-facing environmental promises are subject to a separate standard. A business that makes a claim about future environmental performance must have clear, objective, publicly accessible and verifiable commitments, backed by a detailed and realistic implementation plan with measurable, time-bound targets. The plan must also be checked regularly by an independent external expert whose findings are made available to consumers. The Dutch implementing act writes these requirements into Book 6 of the Civil Code alongside the expanded list of prohibited practices.

The rules reach beyond advertising slogans

The September 27 changes are broader than green advertising. They also expand the information sellers may need to give consumers before a purchase. Depending on the product and on information supplied by the producer, that can include the minimum period for software and security updates, a repairability score where one exists under EU rules, and information about the availability and estimated cost of spare parts, repair instructions and repair restrictions.

Several practices involving product life and software are now specifically prohibited. Sellers may not hide the fact that a software update will negatively affect product functionality, or present an update as necessary when it only adds or improves features. The rules also prohibit falsely claiming that a product will last for a certain period or level of use, presenting a product as repairable when it is not, and encouraging consumers to replace consumables earlier than technically necessary.

Comparison services are affected as well. When a business offers consumers a way to compare products using environmental, social or circularity characteristics such as durability, repairability or recyclability, information about the comparison method becomes material consumer information. The business must also address which products and suppliers are compared and what measures are used to keep that information current.

The Dutch government has acknowledged that compliance carries real costs. In the explanatory memorandum accompanying the legislation, it described an indicative total regulatory burden for Dutch businesses of roughly €45 million to €67 million a year, plus about €218 million to €231 million in one-time costs. Those figures are expressly rough estimates. They draw partly on European Commission assumptions and were reduced to reflect the narrower final obligations and the fact that not every type of business will face every requirement.

The same memorandum estimated that adapting to the ban on generic sustainability claims and minimum criteria for such claims could cost about €373 to €380 per business once, with average annual costs of €8 to €10 over the period used in the Commission’s assessment. Certification can be more expensive. Based on market information cited by the government, annual certification costs for small and midsize Dutch companies can range from roughly €500 to €6,000, while costs for large companies can start around €10,000 and rise depending on the label, product complexity, supply chain and audit frequency.

ACM enforcement puts old stock and existing campaigns under review

ACM has already enforced the older consumer-law standard against unclear sustainability marketing, so the new rules arrive on top of an existing enforcement program rather than creating one from scratch. Its general fining guidance says penalties can reach €900,000 per violation or 10% of the affected turnover, depending on the legal basis, seriousness, duration and circumstances of the case. The regulator can also investigate suspected violations and publish fining decisions.

A practical issue is inventory that was produced before the new application date but remains on shelves with packaging or labels that may no longer comply. ACM and other European consumer authorities have developed a common approach for these “old stock” situations. It is not a blanket exemption. Authorities may take transitional circumstances into account in specific cases, including whether the goods are demonstrably old inventory and whether the company had already taken credible steps before the new rules applied to bring its marketing into compliance.

That distinction matters for retailers and manufacturers with slow-moving products or long packaging cycles. Companies cannot assume that pre-existing labels or environmental wording are automatically grandfathered, but enforcement authorities have signaled that genuine transition problems can be relevant when deciding how to supervise and enforce the rules.

For consumer-facing businesses, the most immediate work is therefore practical: review claims on packaging and websites, identify company-created sustainability labels, check the evidence behind product-wide environmental statements, separate offset purchases from prohibited product-neutrality claims, and confirm whether required durability, repair or update information is reaching customers. ACM is also working with other European regulators on further guidance, which it says will feed into an updated version of its sustainability-claims guidance.