Summary Box: FTC proposes new guidelines for marketing environmentally friendly products
By APWednesday, October 6, 2010
Summary Box: FTC releases revised Green Guides
GREEN GUIDES: The Federal Trade Commission on Wednesday released the first update in 12 years of its guidelines for making environmental claims in product marketing and packaging.
THE GOAL: The agency wants to make clear when companies can make claims about the environmental attributes of a product, like if it was made with recycled or renewable materials or using nonpolluting manufacturing techniques.
BEHIND THE UPDATE: Environmentally friendly claims have proliferated since 1998, when the last version of the “Green Guides” was released, and the prior version of the guide didn’t address a lot of terms that have cropped up since then, like “carbon offset.”
COMMENT PERIOD: The public can comment on the proposals through Dec. 10. The final version of the guides is expected to be out by mid-2011.
