The beginning of the end for Greenwashing?

From the KLM Case to the EU crackdown: How companies are preparing for a new era of environmental claims

In 2024, a court in Amsterdam ruled that Dutch airline KLM had misled consumers through its “Fly Responsibly” advertising campaign. The airline claimed that air travel could become more sustainable through investments in Sustainable Aviation Fuels (SAF) and carbon-offsetting initiatives such as tree planting. According to the ruling, those claims were not supported by sufficient scientific evidence.

The case did not merely affect a single advertising campaign. Rather, it highlighted a broader issue within European marketing: environmental promises that are appealing to read but difficult to substantiate.

Several companies are developing tools designed to help businesses assess their exposure to greenwashing risk.

KLM is far from an isolated case. In response to practices of this kind, the European Union adopted Directive (EU) 2024/825, known as the Empowering Consumers for the Green Transition Directive, with the aim of protecting consumers from vague or unverifiable environmental claims. Under the new rules, companies will no longer be allowed to use generic terms such as “eco”, “green”, “environmentally friendly”, or “responsible choice” unless such claims are supported by third-party recognized certifications, such as the EU Ecolabel, or by scientific evidence made available to consumers.

In Italy, enforcement of the new rules by the Italian Competition Authority (AGCM) will become fully operational from September 2026. Companies that fail to comply with the provisions may face penalties of up to 4% of their annual turnover or fines of up to €10 million.

The scale of the required adjustment is significant. Industry estimates, which vary depending on the sector and methodology used, indicate that a substantial share of the environmental claims currently found on consumer products would not meet the new European standards. The most conservative estimates suggest that at least 50% of existing claims are non-compliant, while more realistic assessments place the figure closer to 90%.

If enforcement proves rigorous, the market will undergo a small revolution that promises to change the very language used to communicate sustainability and environmental value. Packaging decorated with leaves, generic “green” branding, and slogans such as “100% sustainable” will be reserved for only a limited number of companies and products that can genuinely demonstrate a reduced environmental impact.

A compliance tool enters the market

Against this backdrop, several companies are developing tools designed to help businesses assess their exposure to greenwashing risk. Among them is Greenwashing Checkup, a risk-mapping platform developed by Domenico Canzoniero, founder of the consultancy firm NDB Il Marketing Consapevole. For more than fifteen years, Canzoniero has promoted a scientific approach to sustainability and has followed the evolution of the directive since its earliest stages of development in Brussels.

The platform is designed to analyse large volumes of information, including corporate documents, packaging, marketing materials, and websites. Greenwashing Checkup produces a report that assigns a risk rating ranging from low to critical and identifies claims that may conflict with the new regulatory framework. In its most advanced configuration, it also suggests possible corrective actions: removing claims, rewriting them, supporting them with additional evidence, or linking them to a recognised certification scheme.

Canzoniero describes the system as a combination of a probabilistic engine and a deterministic engine based on legal rules derived from the provisions of the directive.

“Artificial intelligence, on its own, is a tool that operates on linguistic probability,” he explains. “If you ask an AI system to scan the same webpage multiple times, it may return slightly different results. To reduce this variability, a substantial part of the work involved training the system across multiple industrial sectors and complementing it with a deterministic engine, ensuring that results remain consistent and reproducible.”

The development required more than 60,000 lines of code and continues to be updated on an ongoing basis. However, as with any compliance tool, the platform’s findings are advisory in nature and do not constitute a legal guarantee. Companies remain responsible for verifying their claims with the support of legal counsel.

What the Directive aims to achieve

Tools of this kind are entering the market at a time when many companies, both large and small, are still trying to fully understand what the directive requires and how to translate its rules into new environmental claims and market strategies. Legal and marketing teams across Europe are reviewing product catalogues, certification gaps, and the documentation supporting environmental claims—a process that compliance software can assist with but cannot replace.

Canzoniero views the legislation as a measure intended to bring clarity to the market rather than as a restriction on environmental marketing.

“European regulation should not be seen as a form of censorship,” he argues. “Its purpose is to reward companies that have authentic, measurable, and genuinely relevant environmental achievements to communicate. If we can create greater clarity about what is truly sustainable and what is not, consumers will be better equipped to choose products that have a lower impact on people and the planet.”

It remains to be seen whether this greater transparency will spread evenly across the market and how rigorously national authorities, such as Italy’s AGCM, will choose to enforce the new rules from September onward. What has already changed is the risk of becoming the target of enforcement action: any consumer or competitor can easily report the ambiguous use of environmental claims to the competent authority. All it takes is one of the many software tools that the market is likely to produce.