The Guidelines for Prevention and Regulation of Greenwashing or Misleading Environmental Claims, 2024

Issued by the CCPA on 15 October 2024 under its Section 18 guideline power, after a public-comment draft and committee consultation, the Guidelines for Prevention and Regulation of Greenwashing or Misleading Environmental Claims, 2024 turn the green claim into a regulated representation: prohibited when deceptive, permitted only when scoped, disclosed, substantiated and, where specific, certified. This note covers the framework: application, the definition and its exclusions, the disclosure and substantiation requirements claim by claim, and enforcement.

1. Application and the Core Prohibition

• Who is bound: all advertisements and all persons whose advertisement it is, manufacturers, service providers, traders, and the advertising agencies and endorsers of such advertisements, the whole chain of the 2022 Guidelines, applied to the environmental claim.
• The prohibition: no person to whom the Guidelines apply shall engage in greenwashing, the operative command, with the disclosure rules defining what honest environmental advertising must look like.
• Continuity with the general law: the Guidelines supplement, and are read with, the Act and the 2022 Guidelines; the greenwashed advertisement is enforced as the misleading advertisement and unfair trade practice it amounts to.

2. The Definition and Its Exclusions

Greenwashing means any deceptive or misleading practice including concealing, omitting or hiding relevant information, by exaggerating, making vague, false or unsubstantiated environmental claims, and the use of misleading words, symbols or imagery that emphasise positive environmental aspects while concealing or downplaying harmful ones. An environmental claim is correspondingly wide: any representation, in any form, about the environmental character of a good, service, process, brand or business, its composition, manufacture, use, disposal, emissions or offsets. The exclusions keep the regime proportionate: the definition does not catch obvious hyperbole or puffery not amounting to a specific claim, nor the mere use of generic colours, pictures or imagery unaccompanied by a claim, the green packet is lawful; the green promise must be proved.

3. The Disclosure and Substantiation Regime

3.1 General requirements for every environmental claim

• Adequate and accurate disclosure: all environmental claims to be backed by disclosures that are adequate, accurate and accessible, in the advertisement itself or through clearly indicated means (a QR code or URL to the substantiation).
• Scope the claim: every claim must specify whether it refers to the good, the manufacturing process, the packaging, the manner of use or the disposal, the unscoped badge is non-compliant by form alone.
• Consumer-friendly language: technical terms, environmental impact assessment, greenhouse gas emissions, ecological footprint, must be explained in language the consumer understands.
• Substantiated data: claims resting on research or data must disclose the source and methodology, and data must not be cherry-picked to favourable fragments.
• Comparative claims: comparisons ('greener than', 'fifty per cent less') must be based on verifiable and relevant data, with the basis of comparison disclosed.

3.2 The regulated vocabulary and specific claims

The loose badges, 'clean', 'green', 'eco-friendly', 'eco-consciousness', 'good for the planet', 'cruelty-free' and their kin, may be used only with adequate, accurate and accessible disclosure and substantiation. Specific technical claims, compostable, degradable, recyclable, 'free-of' a substance, natural, organic, pure, regenerative, and claims about emissions and offsets, must be supported by credible certification, reliable scientific evidence or independent third-party verification, named and checkable. Aspirational and futuristic claims, net-zero targets, '100 per cent sustainable by' a year, may be made only when backed by clear, actionable plans and verifiable pathways, the ambition must have machinery, not merely a date. And no claim may present as distinctive what the law anyway requires, compliance marketed as virtue.

4. Enforcement and Compliance

• Through the Act: the greenwashed claim is a misleading advertisement, Section 21 discontinuance and modification, penalties on manufacturer, advertiser and endorser (whose due-diligence duty now includes the green claim's substantiation), and the Commissions' unfair-practice jurisdiction for the consumer who paid the green premium.
• The CCPA's posture: advisory-led first, directing self-correction of unscoped badges and unsupported seals, with investigation and penalty behind persistent claims; ASCI's environmental-claims code polices the same ground in self-regulation.
• The compliance file: for each claim, the scope statement, the substantiation (tests, life-cycle data, certificates with names and dates), the disclosure route (on-pack, QR, URL), and for aspirational claims the plan and its milestones, the file the regulator will ask for is the file to build before the campaign.
• The drafting discipline: claim less, scope precisely, link the proof; the Guidelines reward the advertiser who converts atmosphere into checkable statements.

5. Related Topics and Provisions

• Greenwashing as a concept (Topic 83): the deception the regime answers
• The 2022 Guidelines (Topic 72): the general advertising code this supplements
• CCPA powers and penalties (Topic 28): the enforcement engine
• Emerging CCPA guidelines (Topic 82): the field in one place