There was always a feeling that words like 'eco-friendly' and 'sustainable' were used far to often, easily, and without truth in business settings.

From 27 September 2026, the EU agrees. Generic environmental claims on packaging are prohibited unless you can demonstrate recognised, excellent environmental performance behind the specific claim. The UK's Competition and Markets Authority can already fine brands up to 10% of global turnover for misleading green claims, no court required. California restricts the chasing-arrows symbol to packaging that's actually collected and processed at scale - a threshold most flexible packaging fails.

Grounded Packaging's breakdown of where this stands across the UK, EU, and US is worth reading if you're in food and beverage. The short version:

Ambiguity is no longer a defence. The European Commission found 53% of EU green claims are vague or unfounded, and 40% have no supporting evidence. That's the norm the law is now fixing.

The honest problem with coffee bags

Most coffee bags are multi-layer flexible packaging. The structure that keeps coffee fresh - the barrier layers, the one-way valve, the metallised interior - is also what makes them nearly impossible to recycle through standard kerbside collection. There is no honest way to put a recycling symbol on a standard coffee bag and have it mean what people assume it means. Too many coffee bags in our industry are designed and created without care or thought for the planet.

We chose to partner with Grounded - they genuinely are building products to make a difference by investing in their own solutions like Plantmade, Wastemade and Papermade - each unique design helps reduce stress on the environment in a number of ways. Again, they are the first to admit they are not perfect, but they to move forward always looking to reduce harm on the planet.

 

When looking through a B Corp certification lense it doesn't mean your packaging is perfect. It means you're assessed across five areas against a standard that's independently verified and renewed each year. We have to answer for our choices at renewal. We can't redefine "sustainable" to fit a marketing message. That pressure - the requirement to actually provide evidence claims - is what these new greenwashing laws are trying to impose on everyone else.

The trade-offs in coffee packaging are real and the easy answers don't exist fully yet. 83% post-consumer recycled content is meaningful progress - lie our 1kg coffee bags - with reductions in reliance on fossil fuels and virgin plastics - but it is not the finish line, there is still work to be done.

Other ways we can make a genuine claim with packaging.

Apart from our partnership with Grounded, aluminium is infinitely recyclable. Our RTD canned coffee range, just launched, is in aluminium for that reason. Not because a can looks good on a shelf (though it does), but because aluminium collected through standard kerbside schemes is genuinely processed and recycled at scale. Whilst also in Ireland the Re-turn.ie scheme ensures plastics and aluminium bottles and cans end up in the right recycling channels always. 

We have been switching wholesale partners to 10kg coffee sacks made from paper with a slim plastic liner to reduce oxidisation. This act alone creates an impact: 

For every 10kg of coffee, we reduce packaging from 10 plastic bags to a single paper sack with a minimal protective liner. That’s up to an 80% reduction in plastic and over 60% lower packaging carbon impact.

It's the difference between a packaging choice that performs environmentally and one dressed up to look like it does.

The point isn't compliance

Brands treating the incoming regulations as a compliance exercise - working out which claims to remove, which symbols to drop - are missing what's actually changing. Consumers and wholesale buyers are getting better at spotting the gap between what a brand says and what they do.

The greenwashing crackdown doesn't require perfection. It requires honesty about where you are and specificity about what you mean. We'd rather have a bag that says nothing about its environmental footprint than one that says something we can't stand behind.

We move forward, always looking to improve our offering for you and for the planet.

Sources for this article include: Grounded Packaging — Packaging Greenwashing Laws in 2026 | EU Empowering Consumers Directive 2024/825 | CMA Green Claims Code | California SB 343