Sustainability claims under scrutiny: What marketers must know about greenwashing regulations

Marketing products and services to address sustainability concerns can be an easy win for brands provided they avoid greenwashing. Greenwashing is conveying misleading or unproven claims about the positive environmental impact of a company’s product. A study by the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) reported that 79% of green claims made by organisations were exaggerated or misleading. India has a framework of regulatory bodies, laws, and standards to address greenwashing and ensure the integrity of environmental claims across various sectors. Marketers need to know the key regulatory bodies, relevant laws, and standards, along with the associated penalties for greenwashing in India.

Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA) has issued guidelines for the Prevention and Regulation of Greenwashing, or Misleading Environmental Claims. These guidelines include:

• A definition of greenwashing in the context of environmental claims

• Requirements for disclosures supporting environmental claims

• Ensuring claims are verified by an independent and recognised third party

• Guidance for making environmental claims.

The guidelines issued by CCPA provide a comprehensive framework to combat deceptive environmental claims. They define greenwashing as practices like exaggeration, downplaying, or concealing information about environmental impacts. Under these guidelines issued by CCPA, penalties are more severe, with first-time offenders facing up to imprisonment of two years and fine of INR 1 million, while repeat offenders may face imprisonment of up to five years and fine of INR 5 million. Generic terms such as clean, green, eco-friendly, eco-consciousness, good for the planet, minimal impact, cruelty-free, carbon-neutral, pure, sustainable, and regenerative cannot be employed without adequate qualifiers and substantiation.

While knowing the law is critical, most greenwashing happens because of ignorance or overenthusiasm or taking creative liberties. I can suggest 5 easy steps for marketers to prevent greenwashing

Step 1: What’s in the product? 

Make sure that you fully understand the claims made by the internal product team on what the product does and how it is to be used. Take care when promoting a single green attribute of a product when the rest of the product is not e.g. bio-degradable packaging around a polluting product.

Step 2: Can you prove it?

Don’t take anything for granted. Supply chains run across the world and building authenticity into ingredients/components isn’t easy. Therefore, make sure that your track and trace mechanisms are in place. Also run a credibility check via internal and external experts before you decide to launch a campaign. Ensure that you have credible certifications in place that substantiate the claim you are making.

Step 3: Run the lifecycle test

Consumers could be buying into a better product while adding to post consumer waste. LED bulbs have faced this problem. They save energy during use, but improper waste disposal leads to contamination of soil and groundwater. Product lifecycle assessments come in handy here. They help assess the impact of source materials, impact of use and post use disposal.

Step 4: Best amongst the worst isn’t good to go

‘We are green because we pollute the least amongst our peers’ is good enough for sustainability reports but not for external campaigns.

Step 5: Things don’t stay constant, Track the data

A campaign is just the start of your journey. In today’s world product packaging, ingredients and consumer habits may change quickly. By constantly aggregating data from multiple sources, marketers can be rest assured they are making accurate, transparent and credible claims.