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The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is re-examining its "Green Guides," the main tool in federal regulation of green advertising claims, which came out in 1992. Businesses hope that the re-examination will clarify grey areas and make it easier for companies to understand and adhere to green-related ad regulations.
The FTC has been accepting comments on the Green Guides and has held workshops on the following environmental marketing issues: carbon offsets/renewable energy certificates, green packaging, and green buildings and textiles.
Once the Guides have been updated, which will likely happen early in 2009, the FTC is expected to bring cases against companies whose green claims are under investigation.
The FTC takes the same approach to evaluating green claims as it does with all marketing claims and trade practices. It says that advertising is considered deceptive if " 'there is a misrepresentation, omission, or other practice that misleads the consumer acting reasonable in the circumstances.' " The Guides also emphasize that claims must have a " 'reasonable basis' " that will often consist of scientific research and studies performed by objective experts.
David Young, partner in the legal firm Goodwin Procter LLP, and specialist in counseling organizations in environmental matters, says that regulatory watchers are interested in seeing how the FTC will deal with difficult-to-define terms such as "sustainability" and "renewability." Regulators in the UK and other countries have made these terms very difficult to use. Since the FTC is aware of First Amendment protections, however, it might decide to provide advertisers with the ability to use such claims as long as they are substantiated with appropriate, objective research.
Source: Media Post, 10/20/2008
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