Before Amazon blocks your ASINs: The new anti-greenwashing rules
Since 27 September, stricter EU rules apply to environmental claims like “sustainable”, “eco-friendly” or “climate-neutral”. Wording that has been in your Amazon content for years can suddenly become a compliance risk. And Amazon acts fast.
The basis is the EU’s ECGT Directive (EU) 2024/825, also known as the EmpCo Directive. It targets greenwashing. Amazon enforces it in Vendor Central and deactivates ASINs as soon as it becomes aware of a violation.
In one in three ASINs we analyzed, the listing contains environmental claims that need to be reviewed under the new rules.
In Germany, ECGT (often called the EmpCo Directive) has been transposed into the Unfair Competition Act (UWG). Beyond Amazon’s own enforcement, competitors and associations can act against non-compliant claims, typically through a formal warning letter.
The question we hear most from vendor teams is not “what is allowed?” It is much simpler: where on our Amazon catalog do these statements actually live today?
This article shows what Amazon now treats as greenwashing, why old wording has become a risk, and how 1P vendor teams to find affected ASINs before Amazon does.
What changed on 27 September
Amazon has emailed vendors asking them to remove prohibited environmental claims from their listings by 27 September. Affected ASINs are flagged “ECGT” on the Product Compliance page. Vendors who don’t act risk having ASINs marked non-compliant and deactivated. According to Amazon, that also applies when submitted evidence is considered invalid.
Amazon explains the rules on its Vendor Central help page on ECGT and under misleading and prohibited product claims (login required). Four things matter most:
- 27 September was a starting line, not a finish line. Every listing you create or edit from now on is in scope.
- It’s not just the detail page. The rules cover every claim in the listing and on packaging, labels and inserts. There is no transition period for stock already produced.
- No flag doesn’t mean a green light. Amazon deactivates as soon as it becomes aware of a violation. Compliant content is your responsibility, not Amazon’s review.
- In Germany, warning letters are an extra risk. ECGT has been transposed into the Unfair Competition Act (UWG). Beyond Amazon, competitors and associations can act against non-compliant claims, typically through a formal warning letter.
The visibility gap
The ECGT flag on the Product Compliance page shows what Amazon has already found. It is not an inventory of your catalog, and every EU store is looked at separately. Here is what that means for a typical vendor catalog:
Title, bullets, description, A+ and Brand Story. Often written years ago, translated by different agencies, never reviewed again.
The most overlooked spots are the ones nobody remembers: “eco” in a product name, “sustainably made” in the fifth bullet, an A+ comparison table that promises “greener than the rest”. Or wording fixed in Germany years ago that is still live in France and Italy.
So the claim itself is rarely the real problem. The problem is that nobody can see all of them at once.
Where the risk is highest
The average hides big differences. In Sports & Outdoors, Office Products and Automotive, more than one in two ASINs contains environmental claims that need review. In clothing and groceries, it is only a fraction.
Share of ASINs with environmental claims in the listing text, by main category.
Methodology: We analyzed more than 80,000 ASINs across all Amazon EU marketplaces, as of 7 October 2026. Only items that are visible, carry an Amazon price and are not end-of-life were included. An environmental claim is any wording in the listing text that contains one of nearly 1,000 environmental terms, such as “sustainable”, “eco-friendly” or “climate-neutral”. A flagged claim is not automatically non-compliant, but it shows where a review is needed.
For context: an analysis by the British Retail Consortium and Provenance found green claims on 74% of products sold by UK online supermarkets, though with a broader definition and limited to grocery retail.
What Amazon now treats as greenwashing
ECGT is not a ban on talking about sustainability. It is a ban on talking about it vaguely. Run every statement through three questions:
-
Is it specific?
“Eco-friendly”, “green” or “sustainable” on their own fail here. So does “climate-neutral” if it rests on offsets.
-
Can we prove it?
Durability, recyclability, energy savings, PFAS-free or a lower footprint need test data, a recognized standard or verified lifecycle data.
-
Does the proof cover exactly this claim?
A recognized label such as the EU Ecolabel supports what it certifies, nothing more. A self-designed badge supports nothing.
Has to go
- Generic claims like “eco-friendly”, “green” or “climate-friendly”
- Neutrality claims based on offsets
- Legal requirements sold as a benefit
- One green detail sold as a green product
- Future promises without a verifiable plan, e.g. “climate-neutral by 2030”
- Environmental comparisons without a disclosed method
- Homemade sustainability seals
Can stay with evidence
- Durability and repairability
- Energy efficiency to a named standard
- Recyclability, incl. local infrastructure
- Biodegradable, bio-based, PFAS-free, carbon footprint
- Recognized ecolabels, within their scope
If a claim stays, you upload the evidence through the “compliance media” attributes: document type, language and a direct download link, not a browser preview link. For existing listings, this has to be done for each EU store separately.
What a rewrite can look like. These examples are illustrative; always check them against your own evidence.
| Before | After |
|---|---|
| Eco-friendly water bottle | Bottle made from 50% recycled PET |
| Climate-neutral delivery | Remove, or state the measured reduction and its method |
| Sustainable cleaning spray | Refill pouch uses 70% less plastic than the 500 ml bottle |
| Green choice for your home | Remove |
Replace an adjective with a specific, verifiable fact on the same detail page. If no fact exists, the sentence goes.
A governance problem, not a copy problem
In most vendor organizations, responsibility for a single detail page is spread across four or five teams.
| Team | Owns | ECGT question it must answer |
|---|---|---|
| Marketing / Content | Copy, images, A+ | Which statements do we make, and where? |
| E-Commerce / Vendor Management | Amazon account, uploads | Which ASINs and marketplaces are affected? |
| Product / Quality | Certificates, test data | Which claims can we actually prove? |
| Legal / Compliance | Interpretation | Which wording is acceptable? |
| Agencies, translators | Local versions | Do all languages say the same thing? |
The customer, and Amazon, see only one thing: the product page. If nobody owns the page as a whole, ECGT turns into weeks of email threads and spreadsheets.
There is a second, very Amazon-specific risk for 1P vendors: content doesn’t stay where you put it. Feeds from other contributors, catalog merges and new marketplace launches can bring old wording back. A one-time clean-up solves the problem only for a while.
A 5-step playbook for vendor teams
-
Make everything that is live visible
Not your PIM, not your content briefs: what customers see today on each detail page, in every EU marketplace, across title, bullets, description and A+.
-
Classify every finding
Remove, prove or keep, using the three questions above.
-
Prioritize by business impact
Start with ASINs that already have an Amazon notice, then your top revenue ASINs, then the long tail. A deactivated bestseller costs more than ten fixed long-tail listings.
-
Fix and document per marketplace
Edit the content, upload evidence where a claim stays, and record who approved which wording. That record is your answer when Amazon or an authority asks.
-
Monitor continuously
Treat content like availability or Buy Box: a KPI you watch every day, not a project you finish once. Steps 1 to 4 are a project. This one is a habit, and it is where most teams fall short.
How AMVisor helps
AMVisor automatically scans your listing text against nearly 1,000 environmental terms, identifies critical environmental claims and shows you, for each ASIN, the exact words and passages that need action. You can then adjust the affected content yourself or have AMVisor do it for you. For AMVisor customers, this monitoring already runs continuously.
| Step | What AMVisor does | What stays with your team |
|---|---|---|
| 1Visibility | The Sustainability Claims Alert checks the listing text that is live on the Amazon frontend and flags ASINs with sustainability wording | Nothing to set up per ASIN |
| 2Classify | Shows each finding with ASIN, marketplace and the flagged wording in one list | Decide: remove, prove or keep |
| 3Prioritize | Puts flagged ASINs next to sales, Buy Box and availability data from AMVisor analytics | Agree on the order of work |
| 4Fix | Gives content, product and legal one shared list to work from | Edit content, upload evidence in Vendor Central |
| 5Monitor | Keeps watching daily and alerts you when wording appears again, as part of content quality in the Amazon Perfect Store | React to new alerts |
One principle runs through all of it: AMVisor doesn’t decide whether a claim is legally defensible. It makes sure you know where critical wording is and how much revenue sits behind it.
Conclusion
Visibility first
ECGT has applied since 27 September, and Amazon is enforcing it consistently. Vendors who leave vague environmental claims on their detail pages risk having content removed or listings deactivated. The rule itself is clear: what is specific and proven can stay. Everything else has to go.
The real challenge lies elsewhere. In a catalog with hundreds of ASINs, several marketplaces and years of accumulated content, few teams know where these statements even are. Amazon’s ASIN list is a starting point, but it doesn’t replace a complete inventory across all text and marketplaces.
That’s why ECGT is less a copywriting task than a question of how you run your Amazon business. Teams that clean up once will be back at square one with the next catalog update. Teams that treat content like availability or Buy Box, as a KPI they monitor every day, are ready for whatever requirement comes next.
Because one thing holds for ECGT and for everything still to come: you can’t manage what you can’t see.
This article supports the operational clean-up and is not legal advice. Whether a specific statement is permitted depends on your evidence. For legal questions, consult a specialized law firm.
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