The National Wood Flooring Association’s green marketing effort is one of the most notorious examples of greenwashing in the building materials industry. The association’s specious and risible arguments, unashamedly made in press releases that should make any self-respecting news editor shudder at the obvious hype, do as much to harm responsible environmental marketing as would flat out lying. It’s truly a sad state of affairs for the wood flooring industry. There are sound and eminently … [Read more...]
FTC Green Guides similar to Canadian Guidelines
September 25, 2008 By Leave a Comment
It’s doubtless no mere coincidence that both the United States and Canada are conducting a review of their respective environmental marketing guidelines in the same year. There are striking similarities in the two proposed documents, and with the level of commercial integration of the two countries, it makes good sense to seek similar standards in consumer protection, particularly in the hot topic of green marketing. Both reviews are under the jurisdiction of federal agencies with similar mandates … [Read more...]
FTC Green Guides: US Advertisers Raise Caution
September 9, 2008 By Leave a Comment
Despite the fact that the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) began a public process this year for revising its guidelines on environmental marketing claims, the issue has not had a high public profile. I’ll therefore attempt to remedy this misfortune by including the topic here in my vastly read blog. And since I have already critiqued some prickly points in the similar – though certainly not identical – Canadian guide, it would be unfair if I didn’t have a go at the American one as well. … [Read more...]
Life Cycle Calculators: A Good Green “Idea”
September 4, 2008 By Leave a Comment
The sudden greening of many industries – whether optics or reality – is creating an urgent demand for quick fixes to complex problems. One such need is for life cycle assessment tools, some of which have sprung into existence almost overnight. Others have been under development since the pre-commercial stage of today’s mushrooming environmentalism. This is especially true in the building materials industry where product life cycle calculators look like they might soon challenge the materials … [Read more...]
Life Cycle Analysis: The Case to Exclude Shipping
September 3, 2008 By Leave a Comment
Try typing “Non-tariff Trade Barriers” into Google and you don’t find CAN/CSA-ISO 14021. How odd! Well, give it a year or so and see what happens. My guess is that Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade will have more than a few issues to deal with. The foregoing alphabet soup is ID for Canada’s new international standard for environmental marketing. The standard is the foundation of Plus 14021 – Environmental Claims: A guide for industry and advertisers, a new … [Read more...]
Plus 14021 – Environmental Claims: A Guide for industry and advertisers
August 28, 2008 By Leave a Comment
Canada’s new guide for environmental marketing claims (Plus 14021 – Environmental Claims: A guide for industry and advertisers) could prove to be an iron fist in a velvet glove. From an environmental point of view, this may be seen a good thing. The advertising industry has shamelessly permitted – worse, promoted – the proliferation of every imaginable green claim for pretty much every product in the marketplace. Its inability, or lack of desire, to self-regulate in this respect has created … [Read more...]
The Language of Green & Canadian Green Marketing Guidelines
August 26, 2008 By Leave a Comment
This just in… My preceding post about “greenwashing” definitions omitted an important American source, Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, Eleventh Edition (2008). It’s important because it’s generally regarded as a solid authority on American usage, and in this particular case because it includes an etymology of greenwashing – one which is surprising, if not shocking. Like most people I know, I had assumed the word was a combination of “green” referring to environmental … [Read more...]
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