Green Guides for packaging and products get an update but still have gaps

Marketers often use labeling and advertising claims about the environmental benefits of their packaging or the products in them.

These are the first revisions in 12 years and only the third revisions since the Guides were created 18 years ago. And yet, though the new proposed adjustments to the Guides were designed to keep up with the times, they altogether avoid guidance on the single most commonly uttered environmental concept these days: “sustainability.”

FTC again reminds marketers that it is important to make claims clear so that consumers know whether you are asserting a benefit about the package or the product in it, or about only part of the package or product.

The FTC summarizes its inspiration for the Green Guides in a succinct, clear, and unintentionally humorous sentence: “Environmental marketing claims are useful sources of information for consumers, but only when they are true.” (Cue the teenagers: “Duh!”)

As the name indicates, these are guidelines, not binding regulations. FTC takes input from industry and surveys consumer perceptions when they make or revise the Guides, and they are designed to assist packaging makers and users in making claims about product attributes that FTC won’t consider false or misleading. Though not strict requirements, the Guides do give packagers excellent hints about what FTC will consider to be false or misleading. It’s FTC’s job to police the fairness of trade, so that’s why they are the agency involved in making guidance about environmental claims, not the Environmental Protection Agency, which implements a series of laws intended to protect the environment.

The making of environmental claims such as “recyclable,” “degradable,” and “environmentally friendly” has been especially popular for decades, and the kinds of problems that regulators perceive with them tend as much or more toward confusion as fraud.

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