'Natural', 'conscious', 'eco-friendly' — a short dictionary of words that mean nothing

Three words, zero legal weight — at least until now. "Natural." "Eco-friendly." "Conscious." For most of the past three decades, any business could put these on a label, a menu, or a homepage without proving a single thing. They read as promises. Legally, they were closer to decoration.

That's changing, slowly and unevenly, but it's changing. From September 2026, EU rules will make it illegal to use terms like "eco-friendly," "green," "natural," or "sustainable" in marketing unless the claim is backed by specific, recognised evidence — not a feeling, not a general commitment, an actual substantiated fact. The FTC has leaned the same direction in the US for years: don't say "eco-friendly," say what you did and let the guest draw the conclusion themselves.

If a concept's entire positioning rests on words like these, that positioning is about to get a lot more fragile — and honestly, it always was. Guests have been ahead of the regulators on this one. Vague green language reads as filler now, not substance. It's the marketing equivalent of a restaurant describing its food as "delicious" instead of describing the dish.

Here's the practical version of this, for anyone building a concept right now: swap the adjective for the fact. Not "eco-friendly cleaning products" — "cleaning products with a full ingredient disclosure and no chlorine bleach." Not "conscious sourcing" — "80% of produce from suppliers within 100km, published on the menu." It's more words, it's less flattering as a headline, and it's the only version that survives contact with a skeptical guest, a journalist, or a regulator asking you to prove it.

The words themselves aren't the problem. The problem is using them as a substitute for the work. Once the work exists, the specific version of the sentence is always more persuasive than the vague one anyway.