Empowering Consumers through Data Transparency
Core Thesis
EmpCo makes every environmental claim only as strong as the evidence behind it. Companies that govern claims as regulated business information, linked to current, traceable and auditable product, supplier and sustainability data, will build a transparency capability they can reuse for Digital Product Passports, eco-design and portfolio steering, while those that only review claim wording will repeat the effort with each new regulation.
Executive Summary
EmpCo changes the status of environmental claims in the EU: statements that used to be treated as marketing content should now be managed to the standards of evidence, traceability and accountability that apply to other regulated business information. A claim becomes a governance object with a defined meaning, scope, methodology, evidence base, owner and maintenance process.
The core challenge is therefore information governance, not communication. Most companies already hold the relevant data, but it is scattered across product, procurement, certification, sustainability and marketing environments. This fragmentation creates three risks:
- Compliance: evidence exists but cannot be retrieved or defended when needed.
- Operational: functions repeatedly request and reconcile the same information.
- Strategic: management lacks product-level visibility for redesign, sourcing and portfolio decisions.
The white paper proposes an enterprise response built on four elements:
- Claims governance operating model: five layers (capture, validate, govern, publish, monitor) that connect every published claim to current evidence and trigger a review when products, suppliers or methods change.
- Product transparency information architecture: eight linked information domains, from product, material and supplier data to a claims register and an audit-ready evidence repository.
- Supplier transparency: the limiting factor, since much of the evidence originates outside the company; it must be developed through standard requests, maturity assessments and contractual data obligations.
- Regulatory-ready PLM: the operational backbone that connects product structures, materials, suppliers, sustainability indicators and compliance evidence across the lifecycle.
Implementation follows three stages: govern and prioritize (claims inventory, risk ranking, ownership), connect and validate (common data model, evidence repository, supplier programme), then automate and reuse (monitoring triggers, dashboards, controlled publishing).
The payoff goes beyond compliance. The same trusted information supports portfolio steering, eco-design, supplier management, customer transparency and Digital Product Passports. Leadership should treat EmpCo as an enterprise information-governance transformation and fund it accordingly, because a narrow claims review reduces immediate exposure but leaves the fragmented information landscape intact.