Last week I was invited to the Banksia Foundation NSW Sustainability Awards having been invited by the founder of Action for Agriculture Inc, a finalist in the NSW Communications for Impact Award category.
Highlights In NSW Sustainability Awards
A massive congratulations must go to all the finalists and of course, the winners, and a big shout out goes to Lynne Strong from Action for Agriculture, who tirelessly works to engage youth who might see agriculture as a future career, to consider how they can solve problems facing us today and tomorrow.
One of the highlights for me (yes I admit it was a little fan girl moment) was seeing Clarence Slockee (you might recognise him from Gardening Australia) appear on stage to carry out the Acknowledgement of Country.
It was a great opportunity to see the amazing things that people (including children) are doing to improve our sustainable practices and innovations throughout the past year. I was particularly impressed at the solutions people are coming up with to have a real impact on our footprint, rather than simply using sustainability as a way to market or promote a business.
Businesses Misleading Marketing Claims
That’s probably a good segway to remind you of the importance of ensuring your business is not making misleading environmental and sustainability marketing claims as this can expose the business to claims by consumers and severe penalties by the ACCC which recently announced it is doing an internet sweep to target ‘greenwashing’ and fake online reviews. According to the ACCC, the sweep:
- With respect to greenwashing, “forms a core part of our work in actively monitoring for ‘greenwashing’ in the market and will help inform what steps businesses can take to improve the integrity of their environmental claims”; and
- With respect to misleading online reviews, will “target misleading reviews posted to business’ websites, Facebook pages and third-party review platforms”. You might also like to read our article on fake reviews.
So now is the time to consider whether your business might be caught up in this review, as the ACCC has indicated it won’t hesitate to take enforcement action when they see that consumers are being misled or deceived.
So What Do Businesses Need To Know?
Generally, if you are making an environmental claim regarding your business, or the products or services it provides, you should make sure you have the evidence to support those claims, and the claims are clear and not otherwise misleading. What is misleading might be difficult for you to determine because you are likely to have a clear understanding of the product, so it may be worth asking people in your life (who are not involved in your business), what they would understand a marketing claim of yours to mean, and see if this raises any concerns or alarm bells.
For example, if goods are made using 90% recycled materials and you advertise this, what does the average consumer think this means? Depending on the goods in question, people may envisage ‘recycled’ materials to mean you are using post-consumer recycled materials (being the type of recycling most people are familiar with) rather than pre-consumer recycled materials. If the goods are made predominantly with pre-consumer recycled materials, it should be disclosed to the customer as is important that your marketing claims do not inadvertently mislead consumers.
If you have any concerns or would like advice regarding sustainability claims our team is here to help. Call us on 1300 80 67 80.
Terri Bell, principal of TLB Law & Co.