The European Union’s Empowering Consumers for the Green Transition Directive is reshaping how sustainability can be communicated across tourism, events and destination marketing. From September 2026, vague environmental claims such as “sustainable”, “eco-friendly” and “carbon neutral” will face significantly increased legal scrutiny across EU markets. For destinations, convention bureaux, venues and event organisations, this represents a major shift from aspirational sustainability messaging to evidence-based communication backed by credible data, governance and verification.

This webinar will explore what the new rules mean in practice for the meetings and events sector, including destination marketing, bid documents, venue communications, sustainability labels, climate claims and stakeholder partnerships. Participants will gain practical guidance on reducing greenwashing risk while still communicating sustainability with confidence and credibility.

Drawing on emerging EU enforcement trends and real-world tourism and events examples, this session will help organisations prepare for a more transparent and accountable sustainability landscape.

By the end of this webinar, participants will be able to:

• Understand how the EU’s Empowering Consumers Directive applies to destinations, convention bureaux, venues and event organisations including what constitutes a “green claim” and why sustainability communications are now a compliance issue as well as a reputational one.
• Identify high-risk sustainability claims and understand how to replace them with credible, evidence-based communication particularly in relation to terms such as “sustainable”, “eco-friendly”, “net zero” and “carbon neutral”.
• Develop practical steps to strengthen internal governance, evidence and verification processes to support compliant sustainability communication across marketing, bidding, partnerships and destination promotion.

 Speaker:

🔗 Dr. Steve Newman, Chief Sustainability Officer at EarthCheck