After 12 years of no significant developments on its environmental marketing guidelines, the Federal Trade Commission has finally proposed an amendment – one that will have significant impact on how green businesses communicate their benefits.

Most relevant amendments:

1. Marketers should not make unqualified general environmental benefit claims. They are difficult, if not impossible, to substantiate.

2. Qualifications should be clear and prominent, and should limit the claim to a specific benefit. Marketers should ensure the advertisement’s context does not imply deceptive environmental claims. Marketers should not make unqualified general environmental benefit claims. They are difficult, if not impossible, to substantiate.

3. Third-party certification does not eliminate a marketer’s obligation to have substantiation for all conveyed claims.

4. Marketers can make an unqualified recyclable claim only if there’s a “substantial majority” of consumers/communities who have access to recycling facilities.

5. Marketers should not make unqualified degradable claims for items destined for landfills, incinerators, or recycling facilities because decomposition will not occur within one year.

6. Non-toxic claims can only be used when an item is generally non-toxic both for humans and for the environment.

Read the summary of the proposal at FTC’s website.

What’s more interesting in these amendments is the issues that are not currently being addressed, such as renewable materials and renewable energy claims, as well as those related to carbon offsetting.

The FTC has set a 60-day comment period ending on December 10, after which it can pass a final version of the guidance.

What other issues do you believe should be addressed?

Recommended reading:
Green Claims: With A Little Help From Our Clients
What Is A Sustainable Brand?
Get Involved With Your Community

Comply with the Environmental Marketing Guides

Today I did a Google search on “green marketing claims” and was just overwhelmed with the results. Here’s what I got on the top 3 results: “Sorting Out ‘Green’ Advertising Claims,” followed by “Only .05% of Green Marketing Claims Not False or Misleading” and “Whom Do You Trust to Make Green Marketing Claims?”. This is quite worrisome for marketers that genuinely want to help green companies succeed. So here’s a resource that will help both marketers and consumers understand green marketing claims – directly from the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

FTC’s Environmental Marketing Guides looks at all advertising from the consumer’s perspective: what message does the ad actually convey to consumers? The Environmental Guides explain how consumers are likely to interpret environmental marketing claims, so that marketers can avoid making false or misleading claims. These guides give environmental claims the meaning that consumers give them, and not necessarily the technical or scientific definition of terms. Also, they do not establish standards for environmental performance or prescribe testing protocols.

All marketers making express or implied claims about the attributes of their product, package or service must have substantiation, that is, a reasonable basis for their claims. When it comes to environmental claims, a reasonable basis often may require competent and reliable scientific evidence, which is defined as tests, analyses, research, studies or other evidence based on the expertise of professionals in the relevant area, conducted and evaluated in an objective way by qualified people – using procedures generally accepted in the profession to yield accurate and reliable results.

An environmental marketing claim should specify whether it refers to the product, the packaging or both, or just to a component of the product or its packaging. For instance, consider a box of cereal labeled “recycled package.” The package consists of a paperboard box with a wax paper bag inside holding the cereal. By itself, the claim “recycled package” could apply to both the box and the bag. If only the box is recycled, the claim is considered deceptive; it should be qualified to say, for example, “recycled box.”

Qualifications (that is, disclosures or explanations) pertaining to an environmental claim should be clear, prominent and understandable. Clarity can be achieved through the size of the type face, proximity of the qualification to the claim being qualified, and absence of contrary language that could undercut effectiveness. Environmental claims should also not exaggerate or overstate attributes or benefits, and comparative environmental claims should be clear to avoid consumer confusion about what is being compared.

You will find more information on this topic at FTC’s website and at GPO Access’s page.

Recommended reading:
Avoiding the greenwash: best green practices for small businesses
5 musts of a green marketing campaign
The argument for green marketing