Pollution Engineering - April 2009 - (Page 18) CASEBOOKCANADA By Dianne Saxe, Ph.D. What Does ‘Green’ Mean? When a product claims to be green, is it? We now have a guideline to help us tell. n June 2008, the federal and Competition Bureau and the Canadian Standards Association published an updated guide on Environmental claims: A Guide for Industry and Advertisers.[1] This guide should help industry and advertisers comply with Canada’s “truth in advertising” laws, such as the Competition Act, the Consumer Packaging and Labelling Act and the Textile Labelling Act. Truth in advertising should also help consumers to put our money where our values are. I Self-declared environmental claims Some green claims are based on third-party testing, such as the Energy Star or Ecologo (www.ecologo.org) labels. Most, however, are self-declared environmental claims. These are claims made by manufacturers, importers, etc., likely to benefit from a product’s environmental claims. The guide is supposed to help ensure that these claims are “verifiable, accurate, meaningful and reliable.” The guide has 18 requirements to help ensure that selfdeclared environmental claims are true. For example, the claims must: • Be accurate and not misleading • Be substantiated and verified. While self-declared claims do not require third-party testing or verification, “the data must be available and accurate.” • Clearly indicate whether the claim applies to the entire product or service, or only to a component or packaging • Be specific to the environmental improvement claimed • Take all relevant aspects of the product’s life cycle into consideration (although life cycle assessment/ analysis is not required) Environmental claims must not be vague or non-specific (e.g., “non-polluting” and “safe for the environment” 18 Pollution Engineering APRIL2009 http://www.ecologo.org
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