With its August 2009 complaint against Bambooza, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) moved forward in what it has identified as a priority: green product claims the commission believed to be bogus. 

The topic of "green" claims for products is an issue of concern for consumer groups, environmental organizations, government agencies and, recently, the U.S. House of Representatives. At a June 9 hearing entitled It's Too Easy Being Green: Defining Fair Green Marketing Practices, the Committee on Energy and Commerce (Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection), members heard about the flood of new products carrying green claims and widespread "greenwashing." 

The testimony of M. Scot Case, vice president of TerraChoice and executive director of the EcoLogo Program, was especially pointed. Green products sold in the U.S., wrote Case, "… are routinely marketed with partial truths, misleading and irrelevant information, and the occasional blatant lie."

Judging green claims 

Companies are flooding the marketplace with green products, something immediately evident by walking down any supermarket aisle. In an article for The National Law Journal on June 8, Tresa Baldas cited findings in a recent report by the environmental marketing company TerraChoice showing a 79-percent increase in the number of so-called green products from 2007 to 2009. Heslin Rothenberg Farley & Mesiti P.C.'s Cleantech Group reported that 274 U.S. patents were granted for clean energy products in the second quarter of 2009 alone, a number that represents the most since the firm began tracking the sector. 

Consumer distrust toward green claims is also increasing. According to a recent TerraChoice study, that distrust is warranted: researchers tested 2,219 products claiming to be green against the FTC's new guidelines, and found that 98 percent carried exaggerated or misleading claims. 

The FTC is ramping up its effort to eliminate – or, at least, shrink – the number of false or deceiving green claims on consumer products. In 2009, it released its long-awaited Guides for the Use of Marketing Claims.

Beyond FTC 

FTC can lodge complaints against specific marketing claims, and individual consumers may have more confidence in the claims of other products, but those two groups are not the only risks to corporate reputation and brand loyalty: bloggers. 

Bloggers have well-established intolerance for misleading advertising, particularly related to environmental and health claims. While it may be easy to shrug off "what are you doing now?" bloggers include scientists, engineers, marketers, analysts, regulators, consumer advocates, attorneys and competitors. It only takes a few minutes for a story – a class-action lawsuit filed against a company because of misleading ads indicating the "safety" of a product, a complaint by FTC, a listing on a rating site of "the world's worst marketing claims," a link in a posting on an environmental website, or a parody of your product's claims on YouTube – to go viral. 

Companies that have invested in the development of more environmentally responsible products, sustainable supply chains and more energy-efficient operations have a positive story to tell. That story can fall apart quickly because of deceptive, misleading or careless marketing claims. PE