Drawing a line in loose sand: the re-emergence of federal green marketing laws
In green marketing, we are the good guys. You sell products that have been EcoLogo-certified as genuine environmental leaders. TerraChoice brings sound science to winning marketing. Together we prove that science can sell, that claims can be both rigorous and resonant.
But in the feverish trend around green marketing these days, there are plenty of bad guys. These are the marketers of false green claims, or of science used to deceive rather than educate customers. (Recall the findings of our Six Sins of Greenwashing study, and the media attention it garnered.)
Unfortunately, the line between good and bad can sometimes be very unclear. It’s not surprising, consequently, that regulators around the world are beginning to pay attention and intervene in green marketing. To wit:
- In 2007, Norway’s Consumer Ombudsman banned any and all environmental claims on cars saying “cars cannot do anything good for the environment except less damage than others”.
- Britain’s advertising watchdog instructed Volvo not to repeat claims that the Volvo C30 was “designed with the utmost respect for the environment in mind.”
- Earlier this year, the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission brought legal proceedings against Saab Australia (through its local holding company) alleging “misleading and deceptive conduct and false representations concerning ‘green’ claims”.
- Here at home both the United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Canada’s Competition Bureau are re-engaging. The Canadian regulator released new environmental guidelines in June of this year, promising increased scrutiny and enforcement. (A one year “transition period” is intended to provide a period of fair warning.) The FTC is still at work on the revision to its guidelines.
I’m happy to report that the North American initiatives already recognize the positive roles played by EcoLogo and TerraChoice. (There has been some suggestion that the Six Sins study caused the acceleration of the FTC’s review schedule and both agencies specifically invited our testimony.)
More importantly, and just within the TerraChoice family, I’d like to share a few strategic observations about all this activity.
1. Marketing and certification are different things. Having EcoLogo certification is not de facto protection against claims of false advertising. The standards for product certification and for legitimate green marketing are different, and it is theoretically possible to have EcoLogo certification and still fall prey to regulators’ scrutiny.
2. Guidelines are meaningless without enforcement. In my view, both agencies have been upselling the revisions themselves and downplaying the enforcement regimes. The Canadian guidelines are rather minor revisions to the 1993 version. The American versions also date to 1993. Since the updates are far from significant, we can expect that the real impact – if any – will arise only from enforcement and not from their simple existence. If the mere existence of the guidelines were enough, the problem would already be solved. It may be unrealistic, therefore, for us to expect that these guidelines will be a meaningful defence against the bad guys. You and I may still have to accept the role of aggressively pointing out the false green claims.
3. Literal compliance will be boring. These guidelines will be easily met by marketing that is dull, bureaucratic, boring, and ineffective. The guidelines offer no help to the real challenge here: balancing rigour with resonance. Your challenge and ours is to combine creativity and effectiveness with these de minimus provisions of the guidelines. Compliance will satisfy the regulator, but it won’t help sell product.
4. These lines are blurry, and therefore risky. The FTC and Competition Bureau guidelines are vague and malleable, a line drawn in soft sand. Except in the most egregious of cases, it won’t be easy to find the greenwashing culprits and it may be easy to find fault with perfectly legitimate claims. There is risk here, and therefore even the most sincere and scientifically sound marketers need to pay attention if they are to stay on the right side of the line.
5. A hard deadline. However soft the guidelines may be, the Canadian deadline of June 25 2009 appears to be hard. In ten months, you should understand these guidelines clearly and have a position not just to mitigate risk, but to use them to your advantage. In other words, Canadian marketers can view June 25 as either a deadline or a starting line.
If you are uncertain about your position with respect to any of these international guidelines, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.
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