Increasingly, companies that have begun advertising products as green are spending green to defend those claims in court against allegations of greenwashing. And it’s not enterprising environmental groups that are the only ones in on the action; the Federal Trade Commission has also beefed up enforcement efforts, as was detailed here.
As it has become “hip” for consumers to buy green products and reduce their carbon footprint, environmental claims on products have increased exponentially. One environmental marketing group has pegged the increase in green advertising over the past two years at 79 percent, and of the green advertising on the market, the group has indicated that 98 percent of the claims contain at least one of what the group calls the seven sins of greenwashing. The report can be found here. The sins include hidden environmental trade-offs, no proof of environmental benefit, vague environmental qualifications, as well as irrelevant, false, or misleading environmental claims, and finally, claims that may be true but ignore larger environmental issues. With an increased focus from environmental groups, litigation over greenwashing has picked up and is likely here to stay.
The latest private greenwashing suit hails from San Jose, California. Wayne Koh filed a class action suit against SC Johnson & Sons, Inc., for a label placed on its popular cleaning product Windex. The complaint is available here. It alleges that SC Johnson’s creation of its own standard and logo for the environmental impact of its products, rather than the use of a third party standard, is misleading. Additionally, Koh argued the ingredients in Windex pose an environmental risk. Toyota has had to deal with litigation over the differential in its popular Prius Hybrid’s EPA estimated mileage per gallon and the actual mileage achieved on the road. And in February, several environmental groups sued Tide, Ajax and other household products for the alleged presence of dangerous chemicals in their products. Greenwashing claims have also popped up in international litigation, for example in England, against Shell Oil for an oil project in Canada. In Australia there have been calls for an investigation into some of Australia’s major companies for alleged greenwashing. So before using environmental claims to make your competitors green with envy, make sure they’re given a careful review.
