Claims
Environmental claims: securing your communication
After 27 September 2026, an environmental claim must rest on verified proof. Independent third-party verification, provided by IRICE, secures the claim, separate from design.
Communicating 'green' after 27 September 2026
EU Directive 2024/825 governs environmental claims: from 27 September 2026, generic claims must be substantiated and, for labels, rest on third-party certification. Without verified proof, the risk is legal and reputational.
For a developer, security comes from independent verification: IRICE, an accredited body, attests the claim as a third party. Design and advisory cannot self-certify, it is exactly this separation that gives the claim its evidential value.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
The rule
Substantiation, and it cannot come from you.
Directive (EU) 2024/825 restricts environmental claims in commercial communication. Generic assertions, environmentally friendly, green, climate-neutral, are prohibited without substantiation, and self-declared sustainability labels are prohibited outright. For a developer, this reaches brochures, websites and sales materials.
The substantive change is who may substantiate. A claim verified by the party making it is not substantiated. Verification has to come from a third party whose competence and impartiality are themselves verified, which in practice means an accredited certification body.
Practice
Say less, and say what can be evidenced.
The safest communication is specific and measured: this development retains a hedgerow of a stated length, achieves a stated carbon result, holds a stated certificate. Specific claims are defensible; general ones are not, and they are what enforcement looks for.
The exercise is worth doing before the sales campaign rather than after a complaint. Withdrawing a claim from live marketing is more expensive than never having made it.
Going further
Related pages.
This question connects to these pages.
- EU Directive 2024/825 — the full framework
- IRICE, Cofrac-accredited certification body — what accredited verification means
- Effinature biodiversity certification — a certificate that can be cited
- Certifying biodiversity on a development — obtaining the evidence
- Life-cycle carbon assessment — a measured, citable result
- Environmental clauses in public procurement — the same logic in tenders
- Working with property developers — the wider engagement
- Certification — why it is held in a separate entity
- Securing the permit — the regulatory groundwork
- Ecological expertise — producing citable evidence
- CSRD sustainability reporting — the corporate counterpart
- Biodiversity criteria in public tenders — the same logic on the buyer side
- Environmental expertise — the assessment behind the claim
Secure an environmental claim
Third-party verification is provided by IRICE, independently of advisory work.
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