Many of you out there may be waiting with baited breath for the release of the new FTC Green Guides, slated for release in the coming months, to help cull the flood of spurious environmental claims that are flooding our lives. It’s the first update in 12 years, a period in which, one could argue, environmental concerns took seed in the consumer market, and as many people have likely noticed – the need for some kind of guidance is significantly past due. Even the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), on its reporter resources page, acknowledges that “because of the proliferation of green claims in the marketplace, the FTC commenced the review in November 2007, over a year earlier than it originally planned, as part of its regulatory review program.” A year earlier! 

While the changes being considered by the FTC do not appear to be in the public domain, it is really quite interesting to read through the actual text of the existing guidelines, the so-called Part 260, particularly the General Principles Section, which include:

• Distinction between benefits of product, package and service
• Overstatement of environmental attribute
• General environmental benefit claims:

Here’s a doozy from the general environmental benefit claims:

A brand name like "Eco-Safe" would be deceptive if, in the context of the product so named, it leads consumers to believe that the product has environmental benefits which cannot be substantiated by the manufacturer. The claim would not be deceptive if "Eco-Safe" were followed by clear and prominent qualifying language limiting the safety representation to a particular product attribute for which it could be substantiated, and provided that no other deceptive implications were created by the context.

It’s worth a click to this website even if just to review examples like this one, which are pretty basic, but remind us that there is at least a foundation from which marketing claims can be made.

So how impactful will the new guides be? Christopher Cole, a quotable favorite on the subject, said the guides could debunk more than 300 environmental seals of approval that currently appear on packaging and products. One of the focus areas of the guides will be Renewable Energy Credits (RECs) and carbon neutral claims; another, packaging claims pertaining to biodegradable and recyclable; and most interesting of all, use of ubiquitous terms like “sustainability.”

What makes this even more interesting is the fact that the guides are starting to have some teeth. After all intent of the guides (according to the FTC) is merely to “help marketers avoid making environmental claims that are unfair or deceptive under Section 5 of the FTC Act.” However “because the Green Guides are administrative interpretations of the law, they do not have the force and effect of law and they are not independently enforceable.” But marketers can still get sued if they advertise things that aren’t “true.”

So the guides are only as meaningful as enforcement of them (much like inspection laws), and, encouragingly, during the first two years of the Obama administration, the FTC has already brought seven enforcement actions, compared to zero during all eight Bush years. The suits (the link is hard to navigate; click on “environment,” then “enforcement”) have dealt with unsubstantiated claims of biodegradable paper products and bamboo-derived fiber.

As a final aside, while it’s critical to stem the tide of false positive claims, what is conspicuously absent from this conversation is the opposite: the introduction of negative labels on “bad” products – those that are less safe, made of toxic materials, having egregious packaging, using copious energy in the production, etc. As things stand, I can’t even buy sunscreen that I can be confident is “safe” without a massive research project or faith in a handy smart phone app. But more on this next in future posts.

For now, the updated FTC Green Guides are expected to be released at the end of the summer. So if you’re a product manufacturer or marketer or a litigator of false claims -- sit tight. You’ll have your work cut out you soon enough.

The Federal Trade Commission is planning to release a new version of its "Green Guides" by the end of the summer according to reports. The new guides will replace versions written in the 1990s and will likely have a hefty affect on the plethora of eco-labels, certifications and claims of biodegradability that litter consumer packaging. It might also influence Wal-Mart's proposed Sustainability Index.

Shocking much of the sustainable business world, Burgerville laid off its director of sustainability, Alison Dennis the other day. Business is fine, say company execs. It's just that sustainability is already an ingrained part of the company culture, so other C-level execs will take on the responsibility of tracking and implementing efforts Dennis would have, according to reports.

The Blue-Green Alliance--a group comprising environmental activists and labor representatives--is currently in the midst of a three-week, 30-day tour around the country. The tour is meant to increase pressure on Congress to pass comprehensive climate legislation.

Yesterday, the strength of the Alliance grew when AFL-CIO announced that it is joining up with Blue-Green Alliance.Putting up a green building isn't an effort to be taken lightly as I wrote yesterday in response to an article by Scott Adams, creator of "Dilbert." Nor is it one to be done in isolation according to a group of three architects: Joshua Prince-Ramus, Randolph R. Croxton and Tuomas Toivonen. Putting up a green building without taking into account its surroundings, connecting it to services and using existing technologies when appropriate won't have the desired affect on climate change. Seems simple enough, but a post on Grist points out some of the shortcomings of many "green building" efforts.

Ford and Portland General Electric are joining forces to develop electric vehicle infrastructure and policy. The move only reinforces the efforts of the city of Portland to make the area an electric vehicle hub, as we reported earlier this month.

The Green Chamber of Commerce is embarking on a national expansion. First stop—Las Vegas. People may have expected the San Francisco-based organization to first expand to Portland or Seattle, says its executive director. But the burgeoning sustainable business landscape in Las Vegas is growing, she says, which shows that "green" business is taking root in the mainstream. 

More than $100 million in stimulus funds has been awarded for energy efficiency renovations to 100 affordable housing developments nationwide, as part of U.S. Housing an Urban Development's Green Retrofit Program for Multifamily Housing. 

Meanwhile, U.S. Department of Energy says it has designated 120 organizations to receive $120 million through its Weatherization Assistance Program. In addition to weatherizing homes, the program aims to test new technologies and financial models. 

Despite consumer education efforts, Americans are in the dark when it comes how to reduce their energy consumption, according to a study by Columbia University's Center for Research on Environmental Decisions.

When Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT) announced in July that it would carry Seventh Generation products in more than 1,500 retail stores and through its online retail portal, it didn’t just expand its offering of household cleaning supplies: It showed that it had won over one of its more vocal critics.

“There’s no question when Wal-Mart pays attention to environmental issues they are given a validity and importance that is unique because they are the biggest corporation in the world,” co-founder and then Seventh Generation CEO Jeffrey Hollender told Sustainable Industries in an interview in 2006. At the time, he added that Wal-Mart’s sustainability efforts are compromised by a lack of transparency and companywide commitment to social responsibility.

Hollender, who handed over the CEO reins in 2009 to former PepsiCo (NYSE: PEP) executive Chuck Maniscalco and now goes by the title Chief Inspired Protagonist, has since changed his tune. “Wal-Mart isn’t the same company it was five years ago,” he wrote on his company’s blog in July.

In recent years Hollender has taken on an informal adviser role on some of Wal-Mart’s sustainability initiatives, which have included setting greenhouse gas emission reduction targets and an announcement in 2009 that it would create a sustainability index to identify the environmental and social impacts of all the products on its shelves.

Hollender has more recently touted Wal-Mart, which reported $405 billion in sales for FY2010, as “a serious sustainability leader.” The decision will also allow Seventh Generation, which is already sold through large retailers including Target (NYSE: TGT), Whole Foods (Nasdaq: WMFI) and Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN), to reach more consumers in more locations.

Seventh Generation says it also plans to partner with Wal-Mart on its chemical-intensive products initiative, which focuses on ingredient screening and consumer education. 

Madison-based Leonardo Academy is trying to bring some order to the chaotic world of eco-labels by developing a suite of ANSI-accredited sustainability standards. Most recently, it announced its intention to develop a Standard for Sustainable Organizations (LEO-1000).

The standard would define what makes a company or organization sustainable and how to measure and document the level of sustainability achieved, according to Leonardo Academy. “Providing a third-party metric for measuring sustainability achievements … will generate competition just as the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED Rating System has energized competition among companies and organizations on the relative levels of sustainability of their buildings,” says Michael Arny, President,Leonardo Academy.

Demand for business certification in addition to or in lieu of product certification seems to exist among triple-bottom-line companies. Twice as many companies became certified B Corporations in the first half of 2010 compared to the same period in 2009, according to Jay Coen Gilbert, co-founder of Pennsylvania-based B Lab, which oversees the certification. There are currently 325 certified B Corporations across 60 industries. (Sustainable Industries is a certified B Corporation). “Consumer research says better companies are more compelling than just good products,” says Gilbert.

Not all companies working to meet triple-bottom-line goals are convinced, however. Portland-based Burgerville, a regional fast-food chain with approximately $70 million in 2009 sales, prides itself on a commitment to buying local ingredients, serving seasonal fare, reducing waste, using renewable energy and treating its employees fairly. With such a wide range of commitments, the company would seem to be an excellent candidate for certification as a B Corporation or under a future Sustainable Organization standard. But such a general approach isn’t inherently attractive to the company, says Alison Dennis, director of sustainable programs for Burgerville.

“At Burgerville, certifications are most meaningful when they address those aspects which are unique to the production of sustainable food, such as soil health, animal welfare, water and habitat protection and social equity,” Dennis says. “The challenge we see with many emerging sustainable business certifications is that they are too generic to be meaningful.”

For Burgerville to consider any eco-label worthy of the time, effort and money it takes to get certified, it needs to make it easy for values-based consumers to understand the differences between brands and products on the market and make decisions based on what matters to them and work in concert with industry-specific standards, she says.

Other planned and proposed standards in Leonardo Academy’s suite of sustainable standards include a sustainable events, sustainable vehicles and sustainable agriculture standards.