The vocabulary
EmpCo glossary
Every term you'll hit in a claims review, in one line each.
- EmpCo
- Shorthand for Directive (EU) 2024/825 on empowering consumers for the green transition through better protection against unfair practices and better information.
- UCPD
- The Unfair Commercial Practices Directive (2005/29/EC), the EU's general rulebook on misleading marketing. EmpCo amends it, including its Annex I blacklist of always-banned practices.
- CRD
- The Consumer Rights Directive (2011/83/EU), which sets pre-contractual information duties. EmpCo adds durability and repairability information to it.
- Annex I blacklist
- The list of commercial practices considered unfair in all circumstances. Practices on this list need no case-by-case assessment of consumer harm – doing them is enough.
- Generic environmental claim
- An environmental claim made in written or oral form without a clear and prominent specification of the claim on the same medium – for example 'eco', 'green' or 'nature's friend'.
- Explicit environmental claim
- A claim in textual form or on a sustainability label that states or implies a product, product category or trader has a positive or zero environmental impact, or is less damaging than alternatives.
- Sustainability label
- Any voluntary trust mark, quality mark or equivalent that sets a product, process or business apart on environmental or social characteristics.
- Certification scheme
- A third-party verification scheme with publicly available criteria, open and transparent conditions of access, independent monitoring, and compliance verification.
- Carbon offsetting
- Compensating emissions by funding reductions elsewhere. Under EmpCo, offsetting can no longer be used to claim a product is climate neutral or has reduced climate impact.
- Substantiation
- The evidence behind a claim: the scope, the measurement method, the baseline and the verification. Without it, a specific claim is just a generic one in longer words.
- Greenwashing
- Presenting environmental performance as better than it is, whether by exaggeration, selective scope, vague language or unverifiable labels.