The  Environmental Technology Verification (ETV) is neither a label nor a certification scheme. It focuses on ensuring that enivonmental claims made by companies are structured and complete, to present a clear assessment of a technology's potential and value. It does not evaluate the technology's performance against standard or pre-defined criteria.

ETV results could be used to prove compliance with any relevant legislation, underpin a bid in public tendering, convince investors or customers of the reliability of performance claims, and to avoid having to repeat demonstrations for different users.

The EU-ETV pilot programme, operating as one of the initiatives under the European Commission's  Eco-Innovation Action Plan, set out to establish the foundations for a true European-level tool supporting and promoting eco-innovation, mainly in SMEs. The programme targets environmental technologies whose value cannot be proven through existing standards or certification schemes, and whose claims could benefit from a credible verification procedure as a guarantee to investors.

Initial stages of the pilot focus on specific technology areas including energy technologies, water technologies, and materials, waste and resource technologies. SMEs and companies interested in purchasing reliable technologies for reducing energy, water or material consumption can check those already verified on the ETV list, which means that a third-party or Verification Body has reviewed all the data supporting the technology's performance to ensure that it is good quality, consistent and comprehensive.