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Topic library · Published · 19 October 2026

Greenwashing in regenerative agriculture: from claims to evidence

Lessons from a food advertising ruling, guidance on regenerative claims, and a practical approach to assessing the evidence.

Assess a specific claim

Regenerative agriculture can describe serious work in the field. The same word can also appear in vague advertising. To distinguish between them, we need to examine the particular claim and its evidence. A complaint provides grounds for investigation; it is not, by itself, a ruling by a competent authority. Equally, a ruling about one advertisement does not establish that every product or practice of a company is problematic.

This article follows our existing discussions of soil regeneration and advertising and assessing regenerative claims. Here we focus on the relationship between actual evidence and the generalisation an advertisement may convey.

A published ruling: Oatly, 26 January 2022

The UK Advertising Standards Authority examined five issues concerning Oatly advertisements and upheld the complaints in part: four issues were found misleading and one was not. A claim of 73% lower emissions relied on evidence about a particular drink and whole cow’s milk, while the message could be understood as a general comparison across all products. In another comparison, the life-cycle boundaries used for the sectors were not equivalent. [1]

The ruling did not concern regenerative agriculture certification. We use it as an example of how environmental evidence should be communicated in food advertising. Even genuine measurements do not justify every wording. The product measured, the comparison made and the message understood by consumers must correspond.

Guidance specifically on regenerative agriculture

ASA/CAP has published guidance on regenerative claims: explain practices and measurements clearly, avoid exaggeration when only a few practices are used, and take care with absolute environmental claims. Purchasing credits is insufficient to describe production as regenerative. This is UK advertising guidance, rather than Greek law or a ruling against a particular farm. [2]

The European framework for claims

Directive (EU) 2024/825 provides, among other measures, restrictions on generic environmental claims without the required substantiation, sustainability labels not based on a certification scheme or established by a public authority, and claims about an entire product when they concern only part of it. It also prohibits claims that a product has a neutral or reduced climate impact when these are based on greenhouse gas emissions offsetting. National measures are scheduled to apply from 27 September 2026. This article does not establish which specific Greek transposing measure applies. [3]

Five practical questions

1. What is the subject? A particular batch, a farm or the whole company?
2. What is the baseline? Are there initial measurements, or only a description of the desired situation?
3. What was measured? Actions, participating hectares, or actual changes in soil, water and biodiversity?
4. What is left out? Inputs, processing, transport, losses and possible adverse effects?
5. Who verified it? Are the method, date, uncertainty and independent assessment publicly available?

These questions form our proposed approach to reading a claim, rather than an automatic test of legal liability. An early-stage programme may lack multi-year data. An honest presentation should then state its starting point, commitments and evaluation plan, distinguishing these from demonstrated restoration.

Communicating our own work

For a pilot olive grove, we suggest describing precisely what happened: when tillage was reduced, how much land was covered, what compost was applied and how the soil was monitored. Results should be accompanied by the method and its limitations. A photograph records the appearance of a place on one day; it cannot replace carbon measurements or evidence about biodiversity.

Transparency also protects growers. It allows them to describe the improvement actually achieved without taking on a broader promise they cannot substantiate. Scientific uncertainty can be stated clearly, alongside the next steps in the research.

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