Who has to prove the environmental claim you have already printed?

The environmental sentence printed on your packaging was written by somebody, perhaps years ago, and nobody has reopened it since. In six days it stops being a matter of interpretation. From 27 September 2026 some of those sentences are unfair commercial practices in all circumstances: no average consumer to weigh up, no context to take into account, no room to explain what you meant. Either you produce the evidence, or the sentence comes off.

What takes effect on 27 September

Italian legislative decree no. 30 of 20 February 2026, published in the Official Gazette no. 56 of 9 March 2026, transposes Directive (EU) 2024/825 and rewrites, among others, articles 18, 21, 22 and 23 of the Consumer Code. It entered into force on 24 March 2026, but its article 2 defers the effect: the provisions of the decree apply from 27 September 2026. Article 4 of the directive imposes the same sequence on every member state — transposition by 27 March 2026, application from 27 September 2026 — and it is the date EUR-Lex puts on the consolidated text 02005L0029-20260927, where every insertion carries the ►M2 marker.

Twelve new entries have been added to Annex I of that directive — the list of practices unfair in all circumstances, which in Italy is article 23 of the Consumer Code. Four concern environmental claims, one concerns legal requirements dressed up as a merit, and seven concern software updates and the durability of goods.

The four entries that hit a sentence already in print

The first, point 2a, goes after badges: “Displaying a sustainability label that is not based on a certification scheme or not established by public authorities.” The second, 4a, goes after the vague word: “Making a generic environmental claim for which the trader is not able to demonstrate recognised excellent environmental performance relevant to the claim.” The third, 4b, goes after the part passed off as the whole — a claim “about the entire product or the trader’s entire business when it concerns only a certain aspect of the product or a specific activity of the trader’s business”. The fourth, 4c, goes after offsetting: “Claiming, based on the offsetting of greenhouse gas emissions, that a product has a neutral, reduced or positive impact on the environment in terms of greenhouse gas emissions.”

One difference in wording changes your internal searches and controls: where the English directive says sustainability label, the Italian legislator wrote «etichetta di sostenibilità» — sustainability labelling — both in the definition in article 18 and in point b-bis of article 23.

What makes a claim generic

The definition is inserted in article 2 of the directive, point (p): a generic environmental claim is one “that is not included on a sustainability label and where the specification of the claim is not provided in clear and prominent terms on the same medium”. Recital 9 names names: “environmentally friendly”, “eco-friendly”, “green”, “nature’s friend”, “ecological”, “biodegradable”, “biobased”. It also points to the way out: “climate-friendly packaging” is generic, while claiming that “100 % of energy used to produce this packaging comes from renewable sources” is not, because the specification sits on the same medium.

If the sentence stays generic, the only defence is recognised excellence: performance compliant with Regulation (EC) No 66/2010 — the EU Ecolabel — or “with national or regional EN ISO 14024 type I ecolabelling schemes officially recognised in the Member States”. That is not a threshold you build in six days.

Who carries the proof, and what happens if it does not arrive

Article 27, paragraph 5, of the Consumer Code — text in force since 2 April 2023, untouched by decree 30/2026 — allows the Italian competition authority to require the trader to furnish evidence as to the accuracy of the factual claims connected with the practice, and adds that if the evidence is not produced or is deemed insufficient, «i dati di fatto sono considerati inesatti»: the factual claims are deemed inaccurate. There is no presumption of good faith to fall back on. There is a file to hand over. Paragraph 9 of the same article sets a fine of between 5,000 and 10,000,000 euro.

Promises about the future are heavier still, and they do not run through the blacklist: the consolidated text adds to article 6(2) a point (d) that makes misleading any claim about future environmental performance without “a detailed and realistic implementation plan that includes measurable and time-bound targets”, regularly verified by an independent third party expert whose findings are made available to consumers.

What stays outside the list

The rest is no softer: it is simply assessed case by case. Article 21 of the Consumer Code now lists among a product’s main characteristics its circularity aspects, such as durability, reparability and recyclability. The seven entries on software and durability — updates that impair functioning, optional updates presented as necessary, features introduced to limit a product’s life — reach anyone selling goods with digital elements: it is the ground we touched when writing about the presumption of conformity for batteries. With the same start date, the consolidated text 02011L0083-20260927 of the Consumer Rights Directive also changes, adding pre-contractual information duties on the legal guarantee, the commercial guarantee of durability, the minimum period for software updates and reparability.

Why a closed system

The proof of an environmental claim is not a document: it is a set. Bills of materials and supply data, life-cycle assessments, scheme certificates, contracts that commit a supplier to an energy mix or a recycled content, test reports. This is the most confidential data you hold, scattered across the ERP, project folders, mailboxes and suppliers’ own archives. Feeding it to an outside service means exporting your production cost and your supply chain to somebody who has signed nothing.

Then there is time. The evidence has to hold as at the date the claim was published, not today: the 2024 catalogue has to be defended with 2024 data. And the search has to work the other way round as well: when a sentence falls, you need to know within an afternoon which product codes, catalogues, datasheets and pages carry it — even where it is phrased in three different ways. A system that keeps documents, the ERP and the historical archive inside the perimeter answers both questions; a manual review answers neither within the timescale of proceedings.

The two axes, applied to this case

Complying. The control we put into operation is a register of claims: every environmental sentence published, where it appears, since when, with what supporting documentation and against which version of the data — the dated trail to produce when the authority asks for the evidence under article 27, paragraph 5, not an opinion that ends in a PDF.

Deciding. The same system holds the ERP, documents, archives and plant data together in a single operating model, on which AI agents execute decisions with an operator in command — for large companies, manufacturing, public administration, healthcare and defence. On-premise on self-contained machines that need no deep integration into your network, or a dedicated cloud with a data centre in Italy staffed by us, always under shared management: you do not need in-house people to administer the models.

Can you say, without opening the warehouse, how many packs your environmental sentence is printed on today? Half an hour with one of our engineers is enough to see where you stand.

What we do not know

We do not know how the authority will apply the notion of a generic claim in practice: the new entries are not yet applicable. We do not know where the sufficiency threshold for evidence sits: article 27, paragraph 5, sets neither a minimum content nor a deadline. In the texts we read — directive, consolidated version and decree — there is no obligation to retain the supporting documentation, and no retention period. And we have not verified whether the ministerial decree that decree 30/2026 provides for in respect of annex II-octies of the Consumer Code has been adopted.