AI says green 135 times and names one certification

Short answer: when ChatGPT or Gemini recommend a business, they give an environmental reason in 135 passages out of 16,022, 0.8%. 77 cite organic produce or ingredients, 57 use a bare adjective ("eco-friendly", "sustainable", "green"), and one names a certification. The reason lives in bakeries, restaurants and salons; in the trades outside them it is almost absent. And the words differ by country: in France, 33 of 35 mentions say "bio" (organic); in the United States, 29 of 35 are generic adjectives, the kind of claim the European Union no longer lets a business make about itself without proof since September 27, 2026.

The AI repeats the adjective, rarely the proof.

What was measured

Our four studies, re-read on October 5, 2026: the same buyer questions ("the best bakery in Lyon", "a good hair salon in Seattle") put to ChatGPT (gpt-4o-mini) and Gemini through their APIs, without web search, in the United States (collected September 13, 2026), the United Kingdom (July 31), France (July 30) and Brazil (August 6). 3,600 answers, cut into passages; we kept the 16,022 that name a business, with the same cleaning as our recent editions. In each, we looked for an environmental reason, in English, French and Portuguese, sorted three ways: organic ("organic flour", "produits bio", "pães orgânicos"), a generic adjective ("eco-friendly", "sustainable", "green practices", "respectueux de l'environnement", "sustentável") and a named certification (B Corp, LEED, Green Key, Ecolabel). The detector was tested on 14 phrasings it must catch and 10 it must not ("sustainable growth", "organic search rankings", "Bethnal Green"). Then we read every passage it kept, 152 of them, and removed 17: a skincare brand called Biologique Recherche, "organic" in the sense of search results, sustainability sold as a consulting service, advice to the reader, wooden keyrings in Manaus filed as locksmiths, and a placeholder name. 135 remain.

Bakeries and salons: where the green reason lives

Bakeries and restaurants give an environmental reason in 4.4% of their passages, hair and beauty salons in 4.0%. Organic flour, organic and natural products, a menu built on local and sustainable sourcing: in those trades the reason is part of what the customer buys. Hotels follow at 1.1%, home repair at 0.6%, mostly heating and air-conditioning companies. In 9,793 passages about lawyers, accountants, insurance brokers, estate agents, dentists, garages and agencies, the reason comes up 7 times. ChatGPT gives it a little more often than Gemini, 0.9% of its passages against 0.7%, and with more bare adjectives: 43 of its 92 mentions, against 14 of Gemini's 43.

One certification in 135

Of the 135 environmental reasons, one names a certification: a Bristol recruitment agency, ADLIB, recommended by Gemini because it is "B-Corp certified". Everything else is a word the reader has to take on trust. Organic is the most concrete of them, 77 mentions, often with a product attached ("organic flour", "organic products"). The 57 generic ones are adjectives: "focuses on eco-friendly plumbing solutions", "eco-friendly design and focus on sustainability", "emphasizes eco-friendly products". And in 12 of those 57, the business's own name already makes the claim: Green Planet Plumbing, Green Air Care, Enviro-Air, Eco Clima. We cannot tell whether the name led the model there; we can tell that the answer adds nothing the name had not said. The pattern is the one we saw with prizes: a distinction travels into an answer when a judge the reader can recognise stands behind it (AI rarely cites an award. Two in five are Michelin).

Since September 27, the EU asks for the proof

Directive (EU) 2024/825 of February 28, 2024, read on EUR-Lex, adds a practice to the list of those banned in all circumstances: "making a generic environmental claim for which the trader is not able to demonstrate recognised excellent environmental performance relevant to the claim". Member States had to adopt the rules by March 27, 2026 and apply them from September 27, 2026. The examples the directive gives are almost word for word what we counted: "environmentally friendly", "eco-friendly", "green", "ecological", "climate friendly". Two limits matter. The rule binds what a business says about itself to consumers, not what an AI assistant writes about it. And our French answers were collected on July 30, before it applied. What changes is on the business side: in the EU, the bare adjective an assistant likes to repeat is now one a business must be able to prove when it writes it on its own pages.

What it means if you are the business

If you run a bakery, a restaurant, a salon or a hotel, an environmental reason is one of the arguments the assistant uses, in about one passage in twenty-five in the first two. It repeats what is written, and what it repeats today is mostly an adjective. The fact that carries further is the specific one: which certification, awarded by whom, which products are organic, which supplier, since when, written plainly and the same way on your site, your map listing and the directories that list you. In the European Union that is no longer only a matter of style: a generic "eco-friendly" on your own page is a claim you must be able to back up. If you are a plumber, a lawyer or an accountant, an environmental reason is not what the answer is made of. Nothing here guarantees being named.

What this does not prove

• These are the models' answers through their APIs, without web search: the way our audit asks. Consumer apps with search switched on may write differently.
• Four studies collected between July 30 and September 13, 2026, one pass per question. The models have moved since, and nothing here measures that drift.
• A vocabulary misses reasons phrased otherwise, so 135 is a floor. The 152 passages it kept were read one by one; the 17 removed are listed, each with its reason, in our measurement files.
• We did not check whether the businesses named actually hold the qualities the answers give them, organic or otherwise.
• The directive is cited for what it requires of businesses in the EU. Nothing here is legal advice, and the measurement predates its application.