The Global Advertising Lawyers Alliance (GALA) has released Green Marketing: A Global Legal Perspective, a study which found that 54 percent of the countries surveyed had legal or self-regulatory challenges to marketers’ “green” claims and 15 percent have recently released new green advertising rules.
Many marketers now focus on the efficiency and cost savings their greener products bring consumers as opposed to simply how they help the environment. “Claims for greener products continue to be scrutinized and challenged, though,” says Wendy Reed of Heenan Blaikie LLP, who designed the survey and tabulated the responses. “Because the rules governing these claims vary from country to country, we hope this survey will help fill the information gap and become a valuable resource for marketers everywhere.”
“The survey demonstrates a worldwide trend toward increased regulation of product marketing on the basis of green or eco-friendly attributes,” says GALA Chairman Douglas Wood. “An increasing number of regulators across the globe are insisting that marketers have solid support for their green claims.”
This survey of 43 countries in the Americas, Europe, Asia and Africa highlights many of the new green guidelines that have been developing around the world as different nations attempt to rein in unsupported claims. The 300-page survey covers the period January 2010 through mid-2013. Two previous GALA surveys were released in 2009 and 2010.
Some key findings include:
• Six of the countries surveyed have introduced or enhanced their green marketing guidelines in the past three years: Australia, Costa Rica, Denmark, New Zealand, the U.K. and the U.S.
• Some of the more active countries were the U.K., with well over 100 challenges to green claims over the past three years, France with 54, Belgium with 50, Brazil with 33 and South Africa with 19.
• The green claims that drew the greatest attention or controversy were “environmentally friendly,” “natural” and “biodegradable.”
• The most-regulated claim is “organic.”
• Twenty-seven of the 43 countries surveyed require labeling of genetically modified organisms.
• Thirty-four countries reported regulations requiring companies to include environmental disclosures in their advertisements and labels for certain products.
The survey includes summaries of recent cases where local decision makers found green claims to be misleading. Click here to download a copy of the study.