EmpCo: 27 September Has Passed. And Now What?

Since 27 September 2026, the EU’s Empowering Consumers for the Green Transition Directive (EmpCo) has entered its application and enforcement period through national consumer protection legislation. Consumer protection authorities can receive and investigate complaints concerning potentially misleading environmental claims, and breaches may result in enforcement measures and financial penalties.

Over the past weeks, we have started receiving some interesting questions from hoteliers. Will consumer protection authorities now come to inspect my hotel? Can a guest report us for greenwashing? Are we really exposed to financial penalties? And perhaps the most interesting question of all: We already have a green hotel certificate, so surely we are covered?

These are understandable questions, particularly for hotels that have invested considerable time and resources in environmental initiatives and sustainability certifications. However, the situation is perhaps not quite what many hoteliers expect.

27 September Has Passed. The Responsibility Has Not.

We do not know when a particular hotel may receive a complaint, be questioned by a consumer organisation or become the subject of an investigation. It may happen tomorrow, next month or not at all. However, waiting until somebody challenges your environmental claims is hardly a sensible approach to risk management.

The relevant question for hotel management today is straightforward: If a guest, corporate client or consumer protection authority challenges what we are claiming, can we demonstrate that our statements are accurate, compliant and supported by reliable evidence? And there is a second question worth considering: Does our existing sustainability certification genuinely provide the level of independent verification and documented evidence that we believe it does?

If you have doubts about either of these questions, that is already a reason to investigate further. Not necessarily because your hotel is doing something wrong, but because uncertainty about the evidence behind your claims represents an avoidable compliance and reputational risk.

Will the Authorities Start Inspecting Hotels?

This is probably the most immediate concern for many General Managers. The answer is that hotels should not expect consumer protection authorities to arrive automatically at every property simply because the deadline has passed. EmpCo does not establish a routine environmental inspection programme for hotels. Enforcement takes place through the consumer protection framework of each Member State. In the Netherlands, for example, the Authority for Consumers and Markets (ACM) is responsible for supervising unfair commercial practices, including misleading sustainability claims.

An investigation may arise following a complaint from a guest, a consumer organisation or a competitor. Authorities may also initiate investigations independently. Consider a simple situation. A guest books your hotel partly because your website presents the property as environmentally friendly. During the stay, however, the guest observes practices that appear inconsistent with that message. Perhaps the hotel claims to operate an effective waste segregation programme, but the guest notices that separated waste is subsequently mixed together. Or perhaps the hotel promotes substantial reductions in energy consumption, while obvious energy wastage is visible throughout the property.

The guest begins questioning whether the environmental statements on your website accurately reflect what happens in your hotel and submits a complaint to the consumer protection authority. Does this automatically mean your hotel has breached the law? Of course not. However, the authority may decide to examine the complaint and request explanations or supporting evidence. The discussion then changes considerably. The authority is not necessarily interested in how many environmental initiatives your hotel has introduced, how enthusiastic your Green Team is or how attractive your sustainability report looks. It will want to establish whether the environmental claim is legally permissible, whether it is misleading and whether the hotel can substantiate what it has communicated to consumers. This is a rather different exercise from preparing for your annual sustainability audit.

“But We Are a Certified Green Hotel!”

Now imagine that the General Manager receives a request from the consumer protection authorities asking the hotel to substantiate an environmental claim. The GM contacts the sustainability coordinator, who immediately provides the hotel’s valid green certificate. The certificate is presented as evidence that the hotel is sustainable. Excellent. But what exactly does this certificate certify?

This is where we encounter a fundamental distinction that is frequently misunderstood within the hotel industry. What is actually being certified? The hotel as a service, the legal entity responsible for its operations, or the management system used to operate the hotel? A certification is not simply a recognition of the name displayed on the hotel’s façade. A genuine certification must have a clearly defined subject, scope and responsible organisation. The hotel name may identify the property covered by the certificate, but the name itself is not what is being assessed.

There are different types of certification, and understanding the difference is essential. For example, certification under ISO/IEC 17021-1 concerns management systems, while certification under ISO/IEC 17065 concerns products, processes and services. Both are legitimate forms of conformity assessment, but they do not certify the same thing.

Let us take a hotel certified against ISO 14001 as an example. ISO 14001 is an environmental management system standard. Certification demonstrates that the organisation’s environmental management system, within its defined scope, has been assessed against the requirements of the standard. It does not automatically certify that the hotel itself is an environmentally friendly product or service, nor does it establish that every environmental claim made about the hotel is substantiated.

If your management system is certified, you can communicate that your hotel operates a certified environmental management system. But you cannot automatically translate that into a claim that your hotel, as a service offered to consumers, is certified as environmentally friendly. After all, your guests are not booking your environmental management system or purchasing your operational procedures. They are purchasing accommodation and hospitality services.

Of course, a well-implemented environmental management system can contribute significantly to the environmental performance of those services. It can provide reliable operational controls, performance monitoring, documented procedures and evidence of continual improvement. But that is not the same as having the environmental characteristics of the hotel service independently certified against a defined product or service standard.

This is why hotels need to understand what they are actually purchasing when selecting a certification programme. Does the certificate cover the environmental management system? Does it cover the hotel service and its defined environmental characteristics? What are the certification criteria, and what exactly has been independently verified? The answer determines what the hotel can legitimately communicate to its guests. The name of your hotel appearing on a certificate does not, by itself, mean that your hotel has been certified as a green or sustainable service.

A hotel may have a perfectly valid management system certificate and still make an environmental claim that is misleading or prohibited. This is not a criticism of management system certification. Quite the opposite. A properly implemented and independently certified environmental management system is an important management instrument. However, it must be presented for what it actually certifies. Certification of a management system and certification of the environmental characteristics of a hotel service are not interchangeable. Ultimately, your guests are not buying your operational manual. They are buying your hotel experience, and if you are making environmental claims about that experience, those are the claims you must be able to defend.

So, Can My Hotel Really Be Fined?

Yes, it can. The fact that a hotel has acted in good faith or has participated in a sustainability certification programme does not automatically prevent enforcement action if its consumer-facing claims breach the applicable legislation. The precise enforcement measures and financial penalties depend on national law and the circumstances of the infringement. However, from an operational and commercial perspective, I would argue that the potential fine is only part of the problem.

Consider the consequences for a hotel that has publicly promoted its environmental credentials for several years, only to discover that some of its claims cannot be substantiated or that its certification does not provide the assurance it believed it had purchased. The hotel may need to withdraw marketing statements, revise its website, respond to corporate clients and explain the situation to stakeholders. For properties operating in the luxury segment, where reputation, trust and brand credibility are essential, such situations can have consequences well beyond the financial penalty itself.

Corporate travel buyers and international hotel groups are also becoming more demanding regarding environmental information. A hotel that cannot provide credible evidence of its performance may find itself facing questions not only from regulators but also from its commercial partners. This is why I consider EmpCo to be more than a regulatory compliance issue. It is also a matter of commercial risk management.

EmpCo Is Not Another Sustainability Standard

One of the misunderstandings we encounter is the assumption that EmpCo introduces another set of environmental criteria that hotels must comply with. It does not. EmpCo is not an environmental management system, a hotel certification standard or an operational checklist. Directive (EU) 2024/825 strengthens existing European consumer protection legislation governing environmental claims, sustainability labels and commercial practices.

In practical terms, the legislation is concerned with what businesses tell consumers and whether those statements are truthful, substantiated and legally permissible. If your hotel claims to be environmentally friendly, climate neutral, sustainable or operating with a reduced environmental impact, those statements must comply with the applicable legal requirements. Certain generic environmental claims are prohibited unless specific conditions are satisfied, including those relating to recognised excellent environmental performance. Other types of claims, such as certain climate-neutrality statements based on offsetting, are subject to specific prohibitions. Therefore, simply having some evidence is not always sufficient. The nature of the claim itself also matters.

For hotels, this represents an important change in approach. Environmental performance can no longer be treated as something managed exclusively by the sustainability department, while Marketing independently decides how the achievements are presented to the public. The two must be connected, and the information communicated must reflect what can actually be demonstrated. EmpCo does not necessarily require your hotel to become more sustainable. It requires you to be accurate, transparent and legally compliant when communicating what your hotel claims to be doing. There is a significant difference between these two concepts.

Not All Sustainability Certifications Are Equal

The hotel industry has seen a considerable increase in environmental labels, sustainability programmes and certification schemes over the past decade. Some programmes have developed demanding standards requiring hotels to establish comprehensive environmental management systems, maintain accurate consumption records, monitor measurable performance indicators, implement operational controls and demonstrate continual improvement. Others operate with considerably less demanding requirements.

The difference is not always visible to the hotel purchasing the certification service, and certainly not to the guest looking at the logo. A hotel may complete a questionnaire, submit documentation, receive an assessment and obtain a certificate. Another hotel may undergo a much more extensive evaluation involving operational inspections, verification of environmental data, interviews with employees, examination of legal compliance and independent certification decisions. Both hotels may subsequently display a green certificate. But do those certificates provide the same level of assurance? Clearly, not necessarily.

A demanding certification process should do considerably more than confirm that the hotel has implemented a number of environmental initiatives. It should establish whether the organisation can demonstrate compliance with defined criteria through objective, reliable and traceable evidence. The hotel should be able to explain its performance, show how its figures were calculated and demonstrate that its management controls are functioning in practice.

For example, if a hotel claims to have reduced its water consumption by 20%, there should be a reliable baseline, a defined reporting period, appropriate consumption records and a transparent calculation methodology. If the claim refers to improved efficiency, the hotel may also need to explain the relationship between water consumption and operational activity, such as occupied room nights. A percentage reduction alone tells us very little if occupancy, operating conditions or reporting boundaries have changed significantly. This is normal audit methodology. Yet it is surprising how frequently these fundamental principles are missing from hotel sustainability communications.

And Who Is Actually Issuing Your Certificate?

There is another aspect of certification that deserves attention: independence. Many certification programmes describe themselves as independently verified or third-party certified. However, hotels should understand what these descriptions mean in practice. Who conducts the audit? Who evaluates the findings? Who makes the certification decision? And what relationship exists between the certification body and the organisation that owns or manages the certification scheme?

These are not administrative details. They are fundamental questions about impartiality and the credibility of the conformity assessment process. In a properly structured independent certification arrangement, the certification body must operate impartially and ensure that its decisions are based on objective evidence rather than commercial interests.

Where certification is provided under accreditation to an appropriate international standard, such as ISO/IEC 17065, the competence and impartiality of the certification body are subject to additional external oversight. Within the European accreditation framework, it is particularly important to distinguish accreditation by an officially recognised national accreditation body from private forms of recognition, programme membership or commercial endorsement. These are not interchangeable concepts.

We also see certification arrangements in which the scheme owner and the certification provider are closely connected, sometimes through related legal entities or shared management structures. Such arrangements do not automatically prove a lack of impartiality, but they require careful examination of the safeguards and the actual separation of responsibilities. Simply establishing a second company does not, by itself, demonstrate independent third-party certification.

Why is this relevant to EmpCo? Because the legislation introduces specific requirements for sustainability labels, including conditions relating to certification schemes and independent third-party verification. Consequently, the governance of a certification programme is no longer merely an internal concern for the scheme owner or certification body. It may have direct implications for whether a hotel can lawfully display and promote a particular sustainability label to consumers. For hotel operators, this is a very good reason to examine not only the certificate they have purchased, but also the system behind it.

What Does This Mean for the General Manager?

Having spent many years working in hotel operations, I know that General Managers already have enough responsibilities without having to become experts in European consumer protection legislation. And that is not what EmpCo expects them to become. However, hotel management must understand the relationship between operational performance and public communication.

In many properties, sustainability information is collected by Engineering, Housekeeping, Purchasing, Finance and other departments. Marketing then translates this information into messages for guests, often without a sufficiently structured process to verify whether the statements accurately reflect the available evidence. Sometimes the hotel has genuinely achieved excellent results, but the supporting information is poorly documented. In other cases, the hotel has implemented a few positive initiatives, and the communication goes considerably further than the actual achievements. Both situations create unnecessary exposure.

The solution is not necessarily to introduce more bureaucracy or another expensive management system. In fact, much of the information required to substantiate environmental performance should already exist within a properly managed hotel. Energy invoices, water consumption records, waste contractor reports, purchasing information, maintenance records, training documentation, internal audits and management reviews are all familiar operational records.

The challenge is to organise this information, verify its reliability and ensure that public claims are consistent with what the records demonstrate. This is where a well-implemented environmental management system and a demanding certification programme can make a substantial difference. Not because the certificate itself protects the hotel from the legislation, but because the management system generates the evidence, controls and accountability needed to support credible environmental communication. Good sustainability management is not about producing attractive reports. It is about being able to demonstrate what is actually happening within the hotel.

The Most Important Question Is Not Whether You Have a Certificate

For years, the hotel industry has focused heavily on obtaining sustainability labels. The question was often: Which certification should we choose? Under the current European regulatory environment, I believe the discussion needs to evolve. The more relevant question is whether the hotel can demonstrate that its environmental claims are accurate, legally permissible and supported by credible evidence.

A hotel without certification may still be able to substantiate specific environmental claims, provided those claims comply with the applicable legal requirements. Equally, a hotel holding a recognised certification may still communicate claims that are misleading, exaggerated or outside the scope of its certificate. Certification remains valuable, particularly when it is based on demanding criteria, sound audit methodology and genuinely independent conformity assessment. But certification should never be confused with automatic legal compliance.

In my experience, the most effective sustainability programmes are those that challenge hotel management to understand their operations, measure their performance, identify weaknesses and implement improvements that can be demonstrated. This is also where sustainability begins to generate real commercial value through reduced operating costs, better resource management, improved governance and stronger market credibility. A certificate should be the result of that process, not its principal objective.

Green Partner | Hoteliers Working for Hoteliers Since 2014

At Green Partner, we approach sustainability from the perspective of hotel operations, supported by extensive experience in environmental management, European legislation, certification criteria development and independent auditing. We understand how hotels operate, where information is generated, how operational controls should function and, importantly, where gaps between sustainability commitments and daily practices tend to appear.

Our approach is practical. Before recommending investments, additional certifications or extensive management programmes, we first establish where the hotel stands. We examine the claims being communicated, the evidence available to support them, the operational practices behind the statements and the relevance and credibility of existing certification arrangements. Where weaknesses are identified, we help management establish proportionate and cost-effective improvements.

The objective is not to create more paperwork or unnecessarily increase operating costs. It is to ensure that sustainability becomes a measurable competitive advantage, supported by sound management, reliable evidence and credible communication.

Your hotel may already be doing considerably more than you realise. Or perhaps your marketing is promising more than your operations can demonstrate. Either way, it is better to establish the facts yourself before somebody else starts asking the questions.

EmpCo is now applicable. The deadline has passed. Before you ask whether your hotel needs another green certificate, ask whether you can defend the one you already have — and the claims you are making with it.

Regulatory reference: Directive (EU) 2024/825, amending Directives 2005/29/EC and 2011/83/EU. Application from 27 September 2026. National enforcement provisions and the circumstances of individual cases determine the applicable measures and penalties.