FTC Enforcing Green Guides

摘要

Fwo recently-settled cases suggest that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is stepping up its enforcement of marketing claims regarding environmental attributes of products. In the two cases involving plastic lumber and related products, the FTC alleged that the companies misled consumers in violation of Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act (FTC Act) about claims related to the recycled content and post-consumer content of their products. The FTC issued its revised Guides for the Use of Environmental Marketing Claims (Green Guides) in October 2012. The Green Guides are intended to ensure marketers' claims about the environmental attributes of their products are "truthful and non-deceptive." While the Green Guides are not independently enforceable by the FTC as administrative interpretations of law, they do describe the types of environmental claims the FTC may find deceptive under Section 5 of the FTC Act.