PPB April 2015

APRIL 2015 •

PPB

• 29

SEEING

GREEN

General Environmental

Benefit Claims

• Marketers should not make broad,

unqualified general environmental

benefit claims like ‘green’ or ‘eco-

friendly.’ Broad claims are difficult

to substantiate, if not impossible.

• Marketers should qualify general

claims with specific environmental

benefits. Qualifications for any claim

should be clear, prominent, and

specific.

• When a marketer qualifies a general

claim with a specific benefit, con-

sumers understand the benefit to

be significant. As a result, marketers

shouldn’t highlight small or unim-

portant benefits.

• If a qualified general claim conveys

that a product has an overall envi-

ronmental benefit because of a spe-

cific attribute, marketers should ana-

lyze the trade-offs resulting from the

attribute to prove the claim.

Carbon Offsets

• Marketers should have competent

and reliable scientific evidence to

support carbon offset claims. They

should use appropriate accounting

methods to ensure they measure

emission reductions properly and

don’t sell them more than once.

• Marketers should disclose whether

the offset purchase pays for emis-

sion reductions that won’t occur for

at least two years.

• Marketers should not advertise a

carbon offset if the law already

requires the activity that is the basis

of the offset.

Certifications And Seals of Approval

Certifications and seals may be

endorsements. According to the

FTC’s Endorsement Guides:

• Marketers should disclose any mate-

rial connections to the certifying

organization. A material connection

is one that could affect the credibility

of the endorsement.

• Marketers shouldn’t use environ-

mental certifications or seals that

don’t clearly convey the basis for

the certification, because the seals

or certifications are likely to convey

general environmental benefits.

• To prevent deception, marketers

using seals or certifications that

don’t convey the basis for the certi-

fication should identify, clearly and

prominently, specific environmental

benefits.

• Claiming “Green, made with recy-

cled content” may be deceptive if

the environmental costs of using

recycled content outweigh the envi-

ronmental benefits of using it.

• Marketers can qualify certifications

based on attributes that are too

numerous to disclose by saying,

“Virtually all products impact the

environment. For details on which

attributes we evaluated, go to [a

website that discusses this prod-

uct].” The marketer should make

sure that the website provides the

referenced information, and that the

information is truthful and accurate.

• A marketer with a third-party certifi-

cation still must substantiate all

express and implied claims.

Compostable

• Marketers who claim a product is

compostable need competent and

reliable scientific evidence that all

materials in the product or package

will break down into—or become

part of—usable compost safely and

in about the same time as the mate-

rials with which it is composted.

• Marketers should qualify com-

postable claims if the product can’t

be composted at home safely or in

a timely way.

• Marketers also should qualify a

claim that a product can be com-

posted in a municipal or institutional

facility if the facilities aren’t avail-

able to a substantial majority of

consumers.

Degradable

• Marketers may make an unqualified

degradable claim only if they can

prove that the “entire product or

package will completely break down

and return to nature within a rea-

sonably short period of time after

customary disposal—defined as one

year.

• Items destined for landfills, incinera-

tors, or recycling facilities will not

degrade within a year, so unquali-

fied biodegradable claims for them

shouldn’t be made.

Free Of

Marketers can make a free-of claim

for a product that contains some

amount of a substance if:

1. the product doesn’t have more

than trace amounts or background

levels of the substance;

2. the amount of substance present

doesn’t cause harm that consumers

typically associate with the sub-

stance;

3. the substance wasn’t added to the

product intentionally

It would be deceptive to claim

that a product is “free of” a substance

if it is free of one substance but

includes another that poses a similar

environmental risk.

If a product doesn’t contain a

substance, it may be deceptive to

claim the product is “free of” that

Summary Of The Green Guides

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