Businesses get some closure on "green" marketing rules
Marketers of consumer products touting various environmental-benefit claims finally have some closure on how to approach green advertising without running afoul of the Federal Trade Commission, said LeClairRyan partner and 17-year FTC veteran Thomas A. Cohn during an Oct. 12 business-law conference. But while the FTC’s finalized Green Guides do offer more clarity to sellers of packaged goods stamped with the likes of “recyclable,” “biodegradable” or “recycled content,” they fail to offer guidance for other terms that are in widespread use, Cohn added.
“These terms include ‘sustainable,’ ‘natural’ and even ‘organic,’ ” the attorney noted in his presentation to the 42nd Annual Advanced Business Law Conference, a Virginia Continuing Legal Education event in Williamsburg. “Still, the top-level themes of the finalized Green Guides are consistent with the proposed revisions published two years ago—namely, that marketers should not make broad, unqualified, general environmental benefit claims, because such claims are nearly impossible to substantiate and are thus deceptive.”